24-year-old Indian wrestler Bajrang Punia has bagged the country’s first gold medal of the 2018 Asian Games.
A gold medallist from the 2018 Commonwealth Games earlier this year, Bajrang won all his bouts leading into the final by technical superiority, asserting his class in the 65kg category.
He outclassed Uzbekistan's Sirojiddin (13-3), Tajikistan's Fayziev Abdulqosim (12-2) and Mongolia's N Batmagnai Batchuluu (10-0) to storm into the gold medal bout.
The final against Daichi Takatani was a close-fought encounter but Bajrang managed to hold his lead throughout and close out the win with a 11-8 scoreline.
Apart from Bajrang, Sushil Kumar (74kg) crashed out after an opening round loss, Sandeep Tomar (57kg) and Mausam Khatri (97kg) were defeated in the quarter-finals and Pawan Kumar’s reached the bronze medal match of the 86kg category through repechage.
Two-time Olympic medallist Sushil, who was exempted from the Asiad trials, lost 3-5 to Bahrain's Adam Batirov in the 74 kg category. He had come into the Games after losing his first bout in four years. The Indian led 2-1 after the first period with a take down but the Bahraini made a strong comeback to silence the Indian fans.
Veteran Indian wrestler Sushil Kumar however asserted that his career is far from being over despite the disappointing first round exit from the Asian Games.
It (the defeat) was not expected. The 57 kg world champion was sitting beside me and he said he lost. I told him don’t worry, I have lost lost. It’s part of sport. I will come back again. We can’t be overwhelmed by defeats or victories. It won’t lead you anywhere.Sushil Kumar
In the 57kg freestyle category, Sandeep Tomar, who was the last wrestler to book a berth for the Games through trials, showed immense promise before crashing out in the quarterfinals. He won his second round bout 12-8 against Turkmenistan's Rustem Nazarov but was outwitted 9-15 by Iran's Reza Atrinagharchi. The Iranian lost his semifinal and this led to Tomar crashing out of the competitions.
Tomar put up a brave fight and was locked 6-6 with his tactically superior Iranian rival. In the second, though, Reza just ran away with the bout with his big-scoring moves.
Mausam Khatri was outplayed 0-8 in the 97 kg by Uzbekistan's Magomed Ibragimo. Khatri remained passive throughout the bout and never made any attacking move.
In the 86kg, Pawan Kumar made a rousing start by blanking Heng Vuthy of Cambodia 8-0 but later lost to reigning world champion Hassan Yazdani Charati of Iran by ‘technical superiority’. Yazdabi is the winner of gold medal at Rio Olympics, apart from three World Cup gold medals and eventually went onto reach the final and thus paved the way for Pawan to compete for the bronze.
Kumar beat Indonesia’s Fahriansyah in the repechage round by technical superiority, but lost 1-8 to Mongolia's Uitumen Orgodol in the bronze medal match of the men’s 86kg freestyle category.
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