India's Rahul Aware bagged a bronze medal after crushing his opponent Tyler Lee Graff 11-4 in the 61kg category bout at the World Wrestling Championships on Sunday to take India's tally to five medals.

Aware was down by 2 points but the Indian put on a valliant fight to take a 4-2 lead at the break time and thereafter never allowed his American opponent to stage a comeback. In the second round, Aware extended his lead to 10-2. Lee Graff garbbed two points in the dying seconds but it was too late till then.

Aware's was the last Indian in contention at the tournament and his bronze helped India finish with their best-ever medal haul at the World Championships with 5 medals in Nur-Sultan that includes-- 1 silver and 4 bronze medals.

India's previous best show was in 2013, when the country had three in their kitty courtesy Amir Dahiya (silver), Bajrang Punia (bronze) and Sandeep Tulsi Yadav (bronze in Greco-Roman)

Aware was fighting for the bronze medal after he lost his semi-final bout 6-10 to Georgia’s Beko Lomtadze in a close-contested bout on Saturday. He had defeated former Asian champion Rassul Kaliyev of Kazakhstan 10-7 in the quarterfinals to progress to the last-four. In a thrilling bout, the Indian scored four quick points with a throw in the last minute of the match to win it 10-7 and enter the semi-finals.

Earlier in the day, Deepak Punia pulled out of the World Championship title clash in 86kg against Iranian great Hazsan Yazdani due to an ankle injury sustained during the semifinal bout.

Deepak was the fourth Indian wrestler to secure his berth at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Vinesh Phogat, Bajrang Punia and Ravi Kumar were the other wrestlers to qualify for the 2020 Olympics

in their respective weight categories. Punia, meanwhile also became only the fifth Indian to reach the final at the senior World Championships.

After Deepak's loss, two-time Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar remains the only Indian to have won a World Championships title (2010).

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