Antim Panghal (women’s 53 kg) and Aman Sehrawat (men’s 57 kg) have been seeded fourth and sixth, respectively, in their weight categories for the wrestling events at the upcoming Paris Olympics beginning on August 5. Vinesh, a two-time Olympian competing in the women’s 50 kg freestyle category, will not have a seeding, according to Olympics.com.
For the first time in Olympic history, wrestling events will feature seeded athletes. The seedings were determined based on performances at the 2023 World Championships, 2024 Continental Championships, 2024 Zagreb Open Ranking Series, and the 2024 Hungarian Ranking Series.
Antim Panghal’s seeding is advantageous, given her bronze medals at the World Championships and Asian Games last year. This positioning means she will avoid facing her rivals such as Japan’s Akari Fujinami, a two-time world champion, and China’s Qianyu Pang, the silver medalist from Tokyo 2020, and Sweden’s Emma Malmgren, a two-time European champion, until the medal rounds. Antim may potentially compete against Ecuador’s Lucia Yepez, also a bronze medalist from the World Championships, in the semifinals.
Aman Sehrawat, the 2023 Asian champion and 2022 under-23 world champion, could potentially face Rei Higuchi of Japan or Armenia’s Arsen Harutyunyan before the medal rounds. Higuchi, a Rio 2016 silver medalist and 2022 world champion, defeated Aman in the Hungarian Ranking Series last June, while Harutyunyan secured a bronze at the World Championships.
The remaining Indian wrestlers—Vinesh, Anshu Malik (women’s 57 kg), Nisha Dahiya (women’s 68 kg), and Reetika Hooda (women’s 76 kg)—will not have seedings and will be placed randomly into brackets a day before the start of the women’s freestyle events.
The wrestling competition at the Paris Olympics will feature a total of 18 medal events, with six each in men’s freestyle, women’s freestyle, and Greco-Roman wrestling, with 16 wrestlers competing in each category.
