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India ended their 2019 campaign at the Asian Wrestling Championships on a high note with the Greco-Roman grapplers clinching a silver and a bronze on the Championship’ last day in Xi’an. The country’s medal tally in the end stood at an impressive figure of 16.
The Asian Associated Wrestling Committee (AAWC) has been organizing the Wrestling Asian Championship since 1979 for the men’s tournament and from 1996 for the women’s tournament.
Greco-Roman grapplers added a silver (Harpreet Singh in 82 kg) & a bronze (Gyanendra in 60 kg), on the final day of Asian Wrestling Championships, making it India's best ever performance in this discipline.#BlueRising #AsianWrestlingChampionships #Wrestling pic.twitter.com/xTv5rnqbTm
— Indian Sports Honours (@sportshonours) April 29, 2019
This year, India’s 16 medal-haul includes eight (one gold, three silver and four bronze) won by men’s freestyle wrestlers, four bronze by women and three silver and one bronze by Greco-Roman wrestlers.
Indian wrestler Harpreet Singh secured a silver in 82kg while his companion Gyanender clinched a bronze in 60kg on the final day of tournament.
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Harpreet gave a tremendous performance in his silver medal round by thrashing Haitao Qian of China 10-1 to enter into the finals after giving a 5-1 defeat to Burgo Beishaliev of Kyrgyzstan in his last-eight stage bout.
However, he failed to secure the gold medal in the finals as he lost the title clash to Iran’s Saeid Morad Abdvali 0-8.
Before, Gyanender did well to defeat Jui Chi Huang of Taipei and bagged the third position.
He won the quarterfinal round against Ali Abed Al Nasser Ali Abuseif of Jordan 9-1 but got defeated by Islomjon Bakhramov of Uzbekistan 0-9 in the semifinals therefore settling for a bronze.
In contrast, Yogesh lost in the 72 kg category clinching no medal after being defeated by Ruslan Tsarev of Kyrgyzstan in the third-fourth place bout. However, Yogesh entered the quarterfinal round despite losing his qualifying match to Hujun Zhang of China 0-9 as his Chinese opponent made the gold medal round.
Wrestler Gurpreet Singh registered a win in semifinals in Greco-Roman 77kg category but faced a 0-8 defeat by Hyunwoo Kim of Korea in the finals thereby securing a silver medal.
Sunil Kumar won the semifinal bout in men’s 87 kg category against Azamat Kustubayev of Kazakhstan 6-6 followed by a defeat by Hossein Ahmad Nouri of Iran in final clash.
Bajrang Punia was the only Indian to secure a gold medal after defeating Kazakhstan’s Sayatbek Okassov by 12-7 in 65 kg men’s free style.
Two other Indian wrestlers on Sunday, Ravinder and Hardeep — crashed out early. Ravinder lost in 67 kg category after losing his qualification bout and Hardeep got defeated in 97kg quarter final bout.
