India defends team title in a perfect fashion by winning 7 gold medals in Men's division and 5 gold in Women's division in Commonwealth Freestyle Wrestling Championships    Cape Town, South Africa - The Commonwealth Freestyle Wrestling Championships concluded on July 1, 2005 among the pomp and ceremony at the gymnasium hall at the University of Stellenbosch. The two day wrestling event was dominated by India and Canada with a suprise individual efforts by the wrestlers from South Africa.     In the preliminary rounds of the men's wrestling, three South African wrestlers started to get the partisan crowd of South African fans cheering as they beat the wrestlers from India. This was not the case in the last night's finals of the 2005 Commonwealth Freestyle Wrestling Championships as India won all seven weight classes against South Africa and Canada in men's Freestyle and five gold medals in women's Freestyle wrestling.     The big suprise in the women's wrestling was Cameroon's young lady wrestler who won the gold medal at 72 kg beating the favorite Indian wrestler. Martine Dugrenier 67 kg, World student wrestling champion from Montreal, Canada handled all opponets with ease in winning the gold medal in her weight class.     As women's wrestling numbers at these championships were low and the gold medal matches decided, the Commonwealth Wrestling Association decided to combine wrestling weight classes to four weight classes for a friendly tournament in order that women wrestlers would get a minimum of three matches each. In this friendly style of competition one wrestler's performance was above the others. Geetika Jakhar 63 kg wrestler from India and the 2003 Commonwealth Wrestling Champion wrestled opponents from 67 kg and 72 kg weight classes and beating all opponents. On the way to a perfect record of six wins she also beat the the Canadian world student champion , Martine Dugrenier.     For her outstanding wrestling performance, the Commonwealth Amateur Wrestling Association selected Geetika Jakhar of India as the best women's wrestler of the 2005 Commonwealth Wrestling Championships.    In the men's wrestling competition, Indian wrestlers were dominating all opponents from other Commonwealth wrestling nations except for Canada and South Africa. For the first time in the Commonwealth history, the upper weight classes had a such a large entry. In 96 kg weight class there were 11 entries.      The Organizing Commitee Chairman, Mr. Sakki Bosse said " if the team from Nigeria and Camerron arrived on time we would have 13 wrestlers in some weights. Both of these countries have good freestyle wrestlers and the finals would have been different. They did not arrive on time to wrestle in the men's freestyle but their women wrestler's were on time to wrestle and they won medals".     Indian team leader and the head coach Jagminder Singh were pleased with the performence of their wrestlers in the finals as they won all seven weight classes. Mr. Singh went to say " we brought our best wrestlers to this competition expecting to win seven gold medals in Freestyle as we did in 2003 Commonwealth Wrestling Championships in London, Ontario, Canada. We look forward to the Greco-Roman portion of these Championships and we expect to win more medals and the team title".     There are many outstanding Indian wrestlers at the 2005 Commonwealth Feestyle Championships but three of them dominated their weight classes, they are Sushil Kumar 66 kg, Ramesh Kumar 74 kg and Palwinder Singh Cheema 120 kg. The Canadian wrestlers David Zilberman 96 kg and Tyler Margetis 74 kg were on the hunt for the gold medals but had to settle for silver this time.     "The Commonwealth Amateur Wrestling Association had a difficult task to sellect the best Frestyle wrestler in the men's competition as there were many good candidates. Ramesh Kumar 74 kg wrestlers was chosen as he showed total dominance of all his opponents in his weight class"said Mr. Josip Mrkoci, Chairman of the Executive Committee.     The team trophy and the best athlete awards will be presented on July 2 in the eveningat the banquet for athletes, officials, organizers and honoured guests.     The president of the South African Wrestling Federation, Mr. Dave van der Merwe was pleased with the performance of his wrestlers by saying " we won 1 silver and 5 bronze medals to put us second in team points behind India and ahead of Canada. Our girls also won 3 silver medals and they wrestled wel as expected. The women's wrestling has not caught on in South Africa as it has in Canada and India. We are little dissapointed in Canada for not sending a full women's team as they are the strongest Commonwealth nation in women's wrestling"    The Greco-Roman wrestling competition is on all day on July 2 and the Indian team has entered a separate full Greco-Roman team plus other wrestlers from Freestyle in order to secure a tem title in this style of wrestling. The Greco-Roman competition is also being held at the Universty of Stellenbosch gymnasium.    Following the Commonwealth Championships a wrestling camp/symposium on wrestling will be held on July 3-7 and then a wrestling competition called " South African Centenary Cup" will be held on July 8-9 with most of the Commonwealth nations staying for this wrestling event as well.     India wins inaugural Commonwealth Greco-Roman Wrestling Championships    Cape Town, South Africa - The Commonwealth Greco-Roman Wrestling Championships concluded last night July 2, 2005 at the gymnasium hall at the University of Stellenbosch. India did not have an easy go at the Greco-Roman Championships as they did in Freestyle. South African wrestlers came close on their heels almost beating India for team title but it was not to be. India with 4 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze medals won the 2005 Commonwealth Greco-Roman team title and South Africa placed second, while Canada took the third place.    In the preliminary rounds India, South Africa and Canada dominated the Commonwealth Greco-Roman wrestling matches and Australia with three entries fought hard to get one of their wrestlers in the final.     Hassan Shahsavan 74 kg an expatriate of Iran and now residing in Australia won the gold medal in a spectacular fashion. The Australian threw Sanjay of India in a high amplitude lock throw straight to a fall.     Hassan's toughest match by far was in the semi-finals against a South African wrestler Heinrich Olwagen. This match was full of controversies. The new FILA rules for the Greco-Roman style of wrestling are a little different than the Freestyle and the referees interpretations were not consistent. It seems that in this match against Olwagen, Hassan had to wrestle with the officials on the mat, but like true champion that he is he prevailed but not without complaint to the FILA representative and the Commonwealth Wrestling Association chairman.     The lone Canadian entry in Greco-Roman Championships was Johnathan Rioux at 84 kg. He had a number of tough matches in preliminaries and then he had to beat Kuldip Sing of India in semi-final in order to reach the finals. Johnathan's toughest match was against Pieter Gouws of South Africa in the finals, he lost the first round 5-4 and then he had to win the next two rounds in order to secure the gold medal. The Canadian coach, Victor Zilberman was happy with the fact that one his male wrestlers won a gold medal at these Championships as none of his other wrestlers were able to win it in Freestyle. The exception was in women's Freestyle wrestling event where Martine Dugrenier of Montreal won a gold medal at 67 kg.     The South African partisan fans were on their feet cheering on one of their oldest wrestlers, Markus Dekker, wrestling at 120 kg. Markus a 39 year old wrestler was in the final facing one of the youngest wrestling stars, Palwinder Singh Cheema of India. Cheema is an accomplished wrestler with many gold medals to his name in wrestling and including previous day's gold medal in Freestyle event. The old warrior took charge of the match and took the fight to his Indian opponent. With an olympic reverse body lift, Markus threw Che