Aman Sehrawat advanced to the men’s 57 kg freestyle wrestling quarter-finals at the Paris 2024 Olympics on Thursday, defeating European champion Vladimir Egorov of North Macedonia. Sehrawat secured his quarter-final berth with a dominant 10-0 win by technical superiority, ending the match with two minutes remaining in the second period.
The 20-year-old Asian champion will face Albania’s Zelimkhan Abakarov, a world champion wrestler, in his quarter-final bout later in the day. Egorov could still compete in the repechage round if Sehrawat advances to the final.
Sehrawat, alongside Antim Panghal, is one of the two Indian wrestlers seeded in their respective weight categories, marking the first time the Olympics have implemented seedings, with the top eight wrestlers in each weight class receiving this designation.
Sehrawat earned India’s first quota in men’s wrestling for the Paris 2024 Olympics by securing a bronze medal at the Asian Games last year and dominating the World Olympic Games Qualifiers. During the qualifiers, he secured a 12-2 victory over Chongsong Han in the quota match and defeated Olympian Georgi Vangelov of Bulgaria 10-4 to advance to the quarter-finals, where he prevailed with another 12-2 win over Andrii Yatsenko of Ukraine.
In the women’s event, Anshu Malik, competing in her second Olympics, lost her opening bout 2-7 to two-time Olympic medalist Helen Louise Maroulis of the United States in the 57 kg pre-quarter-final. Malik, the first Indian woman wrestler to win a silver medal at the World Championships in 2021, still has a chance to compete in the repechage round if Maroulis reaches the final.