Asian Wrestling Championship 2022 | Indian wrestlers add two more bronze medals in Greco-Roman
Harpreet Singh and Sachin Sahrawat each won bronze as Indian Greco-Roman wrestlers and finished their run at the Asian Wrestling Championships 2022 with five medals on Wednesday. Harpreet defeated Korea's Sejin Yang 4-2 in the quarter-finals before falling to Iran's Rasoul Sadegh Garmsiri in semis.
He was awarded the winner of the bronze medal match because Jafar Khan of Qatar fell injured. Meanwhile, the remaining four Greco-Roman wrestlers in action on Wednesday - Gyanender (60kg), Sachin Sahrawat (67kg), Vikas (72kg), and Ravi (97kg) - all lost in the quarter-finals.
Sachin Sahrawat, who fell to the finalist Meiirzhan Shermakhanbet of Kazakhstan, a past world championships bronze medalist, by fall, came back strongly against Uzbekistan's Mahmud Bakhshilloev to win bronze. To claim the podium, the Indian defeated his Uzbek opponent via fall in the final seconds after losing 3-1.
Gyanender, who won bronze in the Yasar Dogu ranking series earlier this year, was defeated in the quarter-finals by two-time Asian medalist Mehdi Mohsen Nejad of Iran due to technical superiority. However, because Mehdi advanced to the finals, Gyanender was forced to compete in the bronze medal match.
However, Ayata Suzuki of Japan was too strong for Gyanender, who was blanked 11-0 in India's first medal match of the day.
Ravi was defeated 3-1 by Kyrgyzstan's Uzur Dzhuzupbekov in the quarter-finals, while Vikas was defeated by Uzbekistan's Mirzobek Rakhmatov due to technical superiority. Both wrestlers did not advance to the bronze medal round.
Sunil Kumar (87kg), Arjun Halakurki (55kg), and Neeraj (63kg) had won bronze medals for India in their respective weight divisions earlier on Tuesday. In total, ten Indian Greco-Roman wrestlers competed in the continental extravaganza.
Indian Greco-Roman wrestlers did not win any medals at the previous event. On Thursday, Indian women's freestyle wrestlers will begin their campaign at the ongoing Asian Wrestling Championships. On Saturday, Indian men's freestyle wrestlers, including Tokyo Olympic medalists Ravi Kumar Dahiya and Bajrang Punia, will compete.