Budapest: Pooja Gehlot (53kg) entered the final after beating Turkey’s Zeynep Yetgil in the semifinal of the U-23 World Wrestling Championships here on Thursday.
Pooja fought her way from a 2-4 deficit to win 8-4 against Yetgil, a gold medallist at the Junior European Wrestling Championships in 2018.
Pooja will take on Haruno Okuno of Japan in the final on Friday. No Indian has ever won a gold in the last three editions of the U-23 World Championships.
It was a fantastic display from the youngster who started from the qualifying stages, where she demolished Ekaterina Verbina of Russia 8-3. In the quarterfinal, Pooja blazed through her bout, notching up a commanding 8-0 win to set up a semifinal showdown with Yetgil.
Pooja is the second Indian woman wrestler to remain in contention for a medal after Jyoti (50kg) made it to the bronze medal contest, which is scheduled to take place later on Thursday night.
