India claimed to more medals at the Muhamet Malo 2026 wrestling tournament in Tirana, Albania, on Saturday. Meenakshi and Neha Sangwan won silver medals in the women’s 53kg and 57kg freestyle categories respectively.
In the women’s 53kg division, which was contested under the Nordic system, Meenakshi finished with silver, behind neutral athlete Natalia Malysheva, the 2025 European Championships bronze medallist.
The 25-year-old Indian wrestler opened her campaign with a 5-0 defeat against Malysheva but made a strong comeback with a 7-0 win over Poland’s Roksana Marta Zasina in her second round. Meenakshi then pinned Kazakhstan’s Ayazhan Markasheva and followed it up with a 2-1 win over Turkiye’s Zeynep Yetgil, a three-time European Championships medallist.
Meanwhile, the 18-year-old Neha Sangwan, a former Under-17 world champion, added silver in the 57kg division after a narrow 8-7 defeat to Ukraine’s two-time Under-23 world champion Solomiia Vynnyk in the final.
The Indian had dominated her earlier bouts, blanking USA’s Amanda Martinez 10-0 in the quarterfinals and Norway’s Felicitas Domajeva by the same score in the semifinals.
India missed out on a medal in the women’s 72kg, with Diksha Malik losing her bronze medal bout 6-2 against Olympian Wiktoria Choluj of Poland. Kajal (women’s 76kg) and India’s Greco-Roman wrestlers Saurabh (63kg), Chetan (63kg) and Karanjit Singh (67kg) could not make it to the medal rounds.
With Saturday’s results, India’s tally at the second UWW Ranking Series event of the year rose to six, one gold, three silvers and two bronze.
Earlier in the tournament, Sujeet Kalkal, a Under-23 world champion, won the gold medal in the men’s 65kg division. Priyanshi Prajapat (women’s 50kg) added silver while Savita (women’s 62kg) and Muskan (women’s 50kg) claimed bronze medals.
India had sent a 48-member wrestling team for the Muhamet Malo 2026, with 16 each entered across the men’s freestyle, the women’s divisions and the Greco-Roman categories.
