BAREILLY: A 17-year-old Uttarakhand girl stunned wrestlers and spectators alike here when she pinned down a well-known male wrestler Sonu Pehlwan, who was not only older and more experienced, but also 16 kg heavier.

As wrestlers from Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and other states participated in an event organized annually in Jogi Navada locality of the city, it was teenager Neha Tomar from Rudrapur who stole the show.

On Friday evening, as spectators at a jam-packed ground here enjoyed bouts one after the other, cheering for their favourites, male wrestlers were in for a surprise when a teenaged girl participant challenged them. Initially they tried to ignore her, but she continued challenging them. After a while, wrestler Sonu Pehlwan, also hailing from Uttarakhand, accepted her challenge.

In a few moments, the atmosphere on the ground had changed. As crowds watched in awe and cheered for her, Neha displayed exemplary agility and unmatched prowess in the arena. In less than 10 minutes, she prevailed upon her strong and well-built opponent from the other sex with relative ease.

Talking to TOI, a jubilant Neha said: “I wanted to show the women participants present here that we are no less in strength and can be equally good at the sport. But the actual reason for which I challenged the male wrestlers was that I had already beaten all the women participants in the event.”

Suresh Rathore, president of Jogi Navada Ramlila committee which organizes the event, said, “This was probably the first time since we started the wrestling event in 1972 when a woman wrestled a man. Her win is another first.”

Event coordinator Sunil Sharma said, “It was a surprise for us too when Neha challenged male wrestlers. But we did not want to hurt her feelings either. So when Sonu Pehlwan agreed to fight her, we made an exception to the rules.”

“To our utter surprise, the match was unpredictable till the very end when Neha pinned him down,” he said.

“Well-known wrestler Sunil Kumar too had participated in our ‘akhara’ in 2007 when he was still trying to earn name and fame. We hope that Neha too goes a long distance and clinch medals for country in future,” Rathore said.

