India’s Greco-Roman wrestlers finished their campaign on a high with two more medals — a Silver through Harpreet Singh (82kg) and a Bronze through Gyanender (60kg) as the Asian Wrestling Championships 2019 came to an end at Xi’an, China on Sunday. With this, India earned three Silver and one Bronze in Greco-Roman wrestling which bettered their tally of two Bronze from the last edition and is India’s best ever showing in this discipline so far at the Asian Championships.
After a strong show, Harpreet Singh had to settle for the second-best position to get his first Silver medal after three consecutive Bronze from this prestigious tournament. In the final, Iran’s Saeid Morad Abdvali, a former world champion and Olympic medallist, never allowed the Indian to settle and registered an 8-0 win by Technical Superiority.
In 60kg, Gyanender stamped his authority over Taipei’s Jui Chi Huang in a dazzling 9-0 result to take the Bronze. He had earlier beaten Ali Abed Alnaser Ali Abuseif of Jordan 9-1 in the quarters but lost his semi-final bout 0-9 to Islomjon Bakhramov. With the Uzbek making it to the final, Gyanender got a chance to contest the bronze medal play-off and made the most of it.
In 72kg, Yogesh missed the Bronze as he went down 0-8 to Kyrgyzstan’s Ruslan Tsarev.
While in 97kg, Hardeep failed to overcome the quarter-final hurdle, Ravinder could not make it past the qualifications in 67kg.
The 30-member Indian wrestling contingent thus had an impressive showing at this six-day continental event, winning a total of 1 Gold, 6 Silver and 9 Bronze.