India\u2019s Pooja Dhanda stunned world and Olympic champion Helen Maroulis to set up Punjab Royals\u2019 second straight title triumph at the Pro Wrestling League<\/p>\n
(PWL)?in New Delhi on Friday.<\/p>\n
The 2013 and 2017 Commonwealth champion, Pooja, who beat Helen in the league stage too, repeated her feat in the sixth bout of the day that sealed Haryana<\/p>\n
Hammers\u2019 fate.<\/p>\n
World Championship gold medallist Zurabi Iakobishvili showed his class in the next clash, to win 4-0 and clinch the championship for Punjab Royals 5-2 in front<\/p>\n
of a packed house.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Anastasija Grigorjeva and Koumba Laroque had won two fights for the Royals while Vladimir Khinchegashvili and Khetik Tsabolov the other two for the<\/p>\n
Hammers to lock the nine-bout tie at 2-2 after four clashes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the best gift I could give to my country on Republic Day,\u201d Pooja said, shortly after her sensational victory. \u201cSaare jahan se acha Hindustan hamaara,\u201d she<\/p>\n
added.<\/p>\n
Reigning Olympic champion Vladimir got the Hammers off to a winning start, scoring a comprehensive 4-0 victory over India\u2019s Naveen Kumar in the 57-kg<\/p>\n
competition.<\/p>\n
Georgia\u2019s Vladimir lived up to his reputation, dominating the opening period and racing to a healthy 4-0 lead straightaway.<\/p>\n
After the breather, he used all his skills and strength to ward off the Indian and comfortably defend his lead to put his team ahead in the nine-bout duel.<\/p>\n
The Royals drew level in the second bout, through 2017 World Championship bronze medalist Anastasija Grigorjeva. In an intense fight, she steamrolled India\u2019s<\/p>\n
Sarita Mor 7-2 in the 62-kg women\u2019s contest.<\/p>\n
Anastasija took an early 1-0 lead but Sarita jumped ahead to 2-1 with a smart move. But Anastasija fought back to make it 2-2 by the break. She was on song<\/p>\n
thereafter, taking a 5-2 lead and wrapping up the bout 7-2.<\/p>\n
The Hammers\u2019 slipped into a 2-1 lead, with Khetik Tsabolov, the 2017 World Championship runner-up, taking down India\u2019s Jitender Kinha 15-0 by technical<\/p>\n
superiority in the 74-kg competition.<\/p>\n
In the opening period, Khetik spent majority of the opening period getting a measure of Jitender and taking a slender 2-0 lead. In the second round, the Russian<\/p>\n
was at his ruthless best, blitzing his way to victory without breaking into sweat.<\/p>\n
In the battle of super heavyweights, Punjab\u2019s icon player Geno Petriashvili wrestled with \u00e9lan to send his side 3-2 up. The World Champion started off slowly but<\/p>\n
soon got into his groove to thrash India\u2019s Sumit Malik 15-0.<\/p>\n
Geno cruised to a 11-0 lead in the opening round and comfortably won the bout. He has remained unbeaten through the entire league.<\/p>\n
In the most-awaited clash, Pooja began on the back foot, losing the initial point to favourite Helen. She didn\u2019t give up the fight though, giving it her all to take a<\/p>\n
slender 2-1 lead.<\/p>\n
Pooja continued her glorious run in the tournament after she beat current World and Olympic champion Helen Maroulis 3-2 in a thrilling encounter. The US<\/p>\n
wrestler began well leading 1-0 in the opening period.<\/p>\n
She defended well in the second period and it looked like she would avenge her loss but the Indian showed great resiliency to win the humdinger of a clash.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
India\u2019s Pooja Dhanda stunned world and Olympic champion Helen Maroulis to set up Punjab Royals\u2019 second straight title triumph at the Pro Wrestling League (PWL)?in New Delhi on Friday. The 2013 and 2017 Commonwealth champion, Pooja, who beat Helen in the league stage too, repeated her feat in the sixth bout of the day that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20019,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20018"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20020,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20018\/revisions\/20020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}