Veteran Geeta Phogat and youngster Vinesh qualified for the World Wrestling Championships for women even as an injured Babita Kumari missed the selection trials, held at the SAI Training Centre in Lucknow on <g data-gr-id="14">Monday .</g>
Glasgow Commonwealth Games gold medallist <g data-gr-id="15">Vinesh</g> got the better of Ritu Phogat in the 48kg wrestling to book a berth at the World Championships in Las Vegas from September 7-12, which will also be the first qualification tournament for next year’s Rio Olympics. The eldest of the Phogat sisters and veteran grappler Geeta made the cut after beating <g data-gr-id="16">Shakshi</g> Malik in the 58kg division. In Babita’s 53 kg category, however, the winner, Nirmala Devi was selected only for the Kazakhstan competition, which will be held before the World Championships, from July 24-27. The decision was earlier taken by the selection committee after taking into consideration Babita’s request and her past performance.
The winner will now attend trials with Babita to book a berth for the World Championships. The date of the trial will be decided later. Lalita (55kg), Sarita (60kg), Anita (63kg), Navjot (69kg) and Nikki (75kg) were the other wrestlers to have made it to the prestigious event after beating their respective opponents. WFI President Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh said, “Our women wrestlers have been working very hard on various aspects of the game at the national camp which is already underway at SAI Centre in Lucknow since November 2014.