Tirana (Albania), February 26 – Sujeet Kalkal, the U23 world champion, won the gold medal in the men’s 65kg freestyle category at the Muhamet Malo 2026 wrestling tournament. He secured the top spot with four consecutive victories based on technical superiority.
The 23-year-old Indian dominated Azerbaijan’s Rashid Babazade 10-0 in the final. He also had a convincing 11-0 victory over USA’s two-time Pan American champion Joseph McKenna in the semifinals, after defeating Nika Zakashvili of Georgia 10-0 in the quarter-finals, and started his campaign with a 16-4 victory over Endrio Avdyli of Albania.
This is his second consecutive gold medal in the 2026 UWW Ranking Series, following his victory at the Zagreb Open in Croatia earlier this month.
Sujeet warmed up with a 16-4 victory over Endrio Avdyli, who gave the Indian a four at the start of the match. Nika Zakashvili (Georgia) then lost 10-0, before Sujeet defeated Joseph McKenna (USA) 11-0, with the same scoreline as in the semifinals of the Zagreb Open.
Rashid, who had pulled off an incredible buzzer-beating four-pointer against Vitali Arujau (USA) in the semifinals to win 16-13, failed to put up a fight in the final. Sujeet defeated him 10-0 to capture a second consecutive gold medal in the Ranking Series.
Overall, this was Sujeet’s fourth gold medal in the UWW circuit, having also won at the 2022 Zouhaier Sghaier and the 2025 Polyak Imre & Varga Janos Memorial.
India’s Mohit Kumar, competing in the same category, was unable to advance past the qualifying round.
In the 57kg division, Ankush and Atish Todkar fought their way through the repechage rounds to reach the bronze medal bouts, but faltered in their respective matches. Meanwhile, Sumit (57kg), Rahul (61kg), Siddharth (70kg), Parvinder (74kg) and Aryan (86kg) failed to reach the medal rounds in their respective weight divisions.
India sent a 48-member wrestling team for the Muhamet Malo 2026, with 16 wrestlers each participating in the men’s freestyle, women’s divisions, and the Greco-Roman category.
