India took their bronze medal tally to three in the second day of action at the Asian Wrestling Championships in New Delhi on Thursday after Jyoti (women’s 75kg) and Anil Kumar (Greco-Roman 85 kg) added to Harpreet Singh’s bronze medal.
Kumar staged a remarkable comeback in the final round in the Greco-Roman 85 kg category to beat Uzbekistan’s Muhammadali Shamsiddinov 7-6. He was pinned down, and on the verge of defeat at one point, trailing 1-6. But he roared back with counter-attacking moves to finish the bout strongly and win 7-6. Kumar celebrated with a moustache twirl.
Kumar was beaten 0-7 by Japan’s Atsushi Matsumoto in the quarter-finals.
Meanwhile, the 31-year-old Jyoti will receive her medal despite losing to Japan’s Masako Furuichi in her semi-final bout as she has no other wrestler in her draw to compete for the bronze-medal play-off.
Jyoti had progressed to the last-four after defeating South Korea’s Seoyeon Jeong 5-1 in the quarter-final.
Luck didn’t shine on greco-roman grappler Deepak, who slumped to a 1-8 loss to Kazakhstan’s Nurgazy Asangulov during his bronze-medal match. He lost his quarterfinal bout to Iran’s Afshin Nemat Byabangard 1-3 in 71kg but still made it to the bronze medal play-off as the Iranian reached the gold medal round.
In women’s 63kg category, Ritu Malik lost a tightly contested bronze medal bout 1-1, by virtue of her opponent Jinyoung Hang of Korea winning the last point. Ritu earlier defeated Min-Wen Hou of Taipei 5-4 to storm into the semifinal but subsequently lost to Battsetseg Soronzonbold of Mongolia 2-12 by fall verdict.
On day three, star wrestlers Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat are in action.
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