New Delhi [India]: Antim Panghal (women’s 53 kg) and Aman Sehrawat (men’s 57 kg) have been seeded fourth and sixth in their respective weight categories for the wrestling events at the Paris Olympics, which will kickstart on August 5.
The two-time Olympian Vinesh, who will be competing in the women’s 50 kg freestyle category during the Olympics, will be unseeded, as per Olympics.com.
For the first-time ever, wrestling events are having seedings at Olympics. Wrestlers earned their seedings based on performances during the 2023 World Championships, 2024 Continental Championships, 2024 Zagreb Open Ranking Series and the 2024 Hungarian Ranking Series.
The seeding is favourable for Antim, who secured bronze medals at the World Championships and Asian Games just last year. This means she would not be battling her rival and two-time world champion from Japan, Akari Fujinami and Tokyo 2020 silver medalist Qianyu Pang of China and two-time European champion Emma Malmgren of Sweden untill the start of medal rounds.
Antim could however, wrestle Ecuador’s Lucia Yepez, a fellow bronze medalist from World Championships from last year, in the semifinals.
Meanwhile, Aman Sehrawat, the 2023 Asian champion and 2022 under-23 world champion, could face Rei Higuchi of Japan or Armenia’s Arsen Harutyunyan before the start of the medal rounds.
Higuchi is the Rio 2016 silver medalist and 2022 world champion who secured a win over Aman last June in the Hungarian Ranking Series. Harutyunyan secured a bronze at the World Championships.
The remaining four Indian wrestlers, Vinesh, Anshu Malik (women’s 57 kg), Nisha Dahiya (women’s 68 kg) and Reetika Hooda (women’s 76 kg) will be unseeded for the Paris Olympics, randomly drawn into brackets a day before women’s freestlyle wrestlers start.
Wrestling at the Paris Olympics will witness 18 medal events, six each in men’s freestlyle, women’s freestyle, and greco-roman wrestling. 16 wrestlers each will be competing at each of these events.