Anshu Malik made history by becoming the first Indian woman wrestler to win a silver medal at the World Wrestling Championships on Thursday (October 7). At the World Championships in Oslo, Norway, the 20-year-old lost her final bout 1-4 to Helen Maroulis, a two-time Olympic medalist.
In the women’s 57kg semi-finals on Wednesday, Anshu beat European silver medalist Solomiia Vynnyk of Ukraine. After 2010 winner Sushil Kumar and 2018 silver medalist Bajrang Punia, Anshu, a cadet World champion and junior Worlds silver medalist, became the third Indian to reach the World championships final.
She is from Nidani village in Haryana’s Jind district, which is known for producing wrestlers and boxers. After seeing her brother Shubham train at the CBSM Sports School in the village in 2012, Anshu decided to take up wrestling.
In 2016, the Haryana grappler took silver in the Asian Junior Championships in Taiwan and bronze in the World Cadet Championships in Georgia. She would go on to win the world cadet title a year later.
She became one of the youngest Indians to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics in April this year, after a stellar senior career spanning a year and a half, which included earning Asian gold and silver at the Individual World Cup in Belgrade in 2020.
