(Image source from: m.varthabharati.in)

Indian wrestler Bajrang Punia has become the first Indian to feature in the top seeds of World Wrestling Championships to be held in Budapest, Hungary, from October 20 to 28.

In the men's freestyle event, he is seeded third in the 65 kg class.

According to the ranking list released by United World Wresting, Punia accorded the pride of place with 45 points.

The world body has acquainted the seeding system for the first time ever for the World Championship, utilizing the pre-championship execution ranking points to find out the competitive seeds. This follows the new ranking series that was proclaimed during the 2017 World Championships in Paris. Earlier, wrestlers were pulled into the brackets via a random draw of lots.

Turkey's Selahattin Kilicsallayan is the top seed (50 points) in the 65 kg class weight category while Ilias Bekbulatov from Russia and the Indian grappler are positioned second and third respectively and Haji Aliyev from Azerbaijan is stationed fourth in the seeding list.

Bajrang has been training for the last two weeks at the Matrahaza Olympic Training Center in Matrahaza, Hungary. He had arrived Hungary before other team members reached on October 10.

Clearly, Punia felt delighted getting chosen for seeding but then he wants to match his performance according to the position accorded.

"I had come here early to get acclimatized to conditions and am fully focused. I hope I can live up to everybody's expectations and return home with a gold medal," the CWG medalist said.

-Sowmya Sangam