Pooja Dhanda lights up day for India at World Championship with bronze medal
Budapest (Hungary), Oct 25: Pooja Dhanda became only the fourth Indian woman grappler to win a medal at the World Championship, grabbing a bronze with a stunning 10-7 win over the 2017 European champion Grace Jacob Bullen, here on Thursday.
One of the two wrestlers in a medal contention, the 24-year-old Pooja executed a four-point throw in each of the two periods in the 57kg contest to deliver the best performance of her career.
It is second big medal for Pooja this season, having won a silver the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast.
Only Alka Tomar (2006), Geeta (2012) and Babita Phogat (2012) have won bronze medals for India at the World's before Pooja's memorable medal victory.
She opened up a 4-1 lead with a throw, which she found on counter attack. She consolidated it with a roll and took a 6-1 lead after the end of first period.
After conceding a point for a step out, Pooja Stunned the Norwegian with another four-point throw, to zoom to a 10-2 lead.
Grace reduced the gap with a take down and a couple of push outs to put pressure on the Indian, who was cautioned twice. She somehow managed to avoid a third caution, holding off to lead.
She had earlier erased a three-point deficit to win her repechage round 8-3 against Alyona Kolesnik from Azerbaijan
Before, Pooja's bout Ritu Phogat lost her bronze medal bouts and none of the four Greco Roman grapplers could win even a single match.
Ritu had a chance to emulate her elders sister -- Geeta and Babtia -- to win a Worlds medal but she lost the 50kg bronze play-off 5-10 to Ukraine's Oksana Livach.
Coming from behind, she had beaten Romania's Emilia Alina Vuc in the repechage but the Ukrainian proved too strong for her.
Rio Olympic bronze medallist Sakshi Malik yet again failed to reach the medal round at a big-ticket event, losing the repechage round 2-3 to Hungary's Marianna Sastin. Sakshi had a 2-1 lead but failed to defend it for last seven seconds, playing too defensive.
The Greco Roman competition began today but none of the four wrestlers could win a match.
Vijay (55kg), Gaurav Sharma (63kg), Kuldeep Malik (72kg) and Harpreet Singh (82kg) all crashed out after losing their Qualification rounds.
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Mumbai family deaths: FDA finds no watermelon vendor in area to check for affected stock
Mumbai (PTI): The Food and Drug Administration team probing the cause of death of four members of a family in south Mumbai's JJ Marg area have not been able to zero in on any watermelon vendor in the vicinity to check if the fruit had a role to play in the ill-fated incident, an official said on Thursday.
The Dokadia family, residents of Ghari Mohalla on Ismail Kurte Road, had hosted a get-together of relatives on the night of April 25. At around 1 am, hours after the guests had left, Abdullah Dokadia (40), his wife Nasreen (35), and daughters Ayesha (16) and Zaineb (13) ate pieces of a watermelon.
They suffered severe bouts of vomiting and diarrhoea in the early hours of April 26 and were rushed to a local hospital before being referred to the government-run J J Hospital where all four died during treatment.
"The FDA team visited the house of Dokadia and collected samples of chicken pulao and watermelon pieces. After two days, the leftover chicken pulao had developed fungus growth. The team also tried to locate watermelon vendors to check for any affected lots," he said.
But no vendors were found in the area for the past two days, preventing the FDA team from getting samples, the official added.
The FDA has requested the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) to share the report on the food samples collected by them, he added.
A senior Mumbai police official said the force is waiting for FSL reports in the case, adding that questions on presence of sedatives etc in the fruit could be answered only then.
The statements of the kin of the deceased are being recorded to ascertain if it is a case of mass suicide, and it is being checked if the Dokadia family were in debt or distressed over some issue, the police official said.
