Asian Wrestling C’ships: Harpreet clinches Greco-Roman silver as India finish event with 16 medals

India finished their campaign at the Asian Wrestling Championships on a high note as Greco-Roman grapplers added a silver and a bronze on the concluding day in Xi’an, China on Sunday.

The Indian contingent won a total of 16 medals — eight medals in men’s freestyle (1 gold, 3 silver & 4 bronze), four medals in women’s (all Bronze) and four medals in men’s Greco-Roman (3 Silver, 1 Bronze).

On the final day, Harpreet Singh won silver in 82kg while Gyanender clinched bronze in 60kg of the Greco-Roman categories.

Harpreet put up an impressive performance to storm into the gold medal round, having thrashed Haitao Qian of China 10-1 in the semifinals after handing a 5-1 defeat to Burgo Beishaliev of Kyrgyzstan in his last-eight stage bout.

Harpreet though failed to clinch the top spot as he went down in the title clash to Iran’s Saeid Morad Abdvali 0-8. That defeat extended India’s wait for a Greco-Roman gold at the event to 26 years.

Earlier, Gyanender did well to defeat Jui Chi Huang of Taipei and bag the third position.

For Gyanender, a quarterfinal round win over Ali Abed Alnaser Ali Abuseif of Jordan 9-1 was followed by a 0-9 defeat against Islomjon Bakhramov of Uzbekistan in the semifinal.

In contrast, Yogesh lost out on a podium finish in 72kg category after being beaten by Ruslan Tsarev of Kyrgyzstan in the third-fourth place bout.

Yogesh had entered the bronze medal round despite losing his qualifying match to Hujun Zhang of China 0-9 as his Chinese opponent made the gold medal round.

However, two other Indians in the fray on Sunday – Ravinder and Hardeep – were knocked out early. While Ravinder bowed out in 67kg after losing his qualification bout, Hardeep suffered defeat in 97kg quarter-final bout.

Bajrang Punia was the only Indian to finish on top of the podium at the tournament in Xi’an.