Asian Wrestling C\'ships: Gurpreet\, Sunil lose in final

Asian Wrestling C'ships: Gurpreet, Sunil settle for silver

Gurpreet lost 0-8 defeat against Korea’s Hyeonwoo Kim in the final of the 77kg category

IMAGE: Gurpreet lost 0-8 defeat against Korea’s Hyeonwoo Kim in the final of the 77kg category. Photograph: Twitter

India's Gurpreet Singh and Sunil Kumar settled for a silver medal each in their respective Greco-Roman finals at the Asian Wrestling Championships in Xi'an, China, on Saturday.

On the penultimate day of the competition, India finished with just two silver in the Greco-Roman wrestling event even as Prem missed out on a bronze medal finish.

Gurpreet had to be satisfied with a second spot after being handed a 0-8 defeat by Hyeonwoo Kim of Korea in the final of the 77kg category.

 

However on his way to the final, Gurpreet put up an impressive show, thrashing Qatari Bakhit Sharif K Badr 10-0 in the quarter-finals before eking out a narrow 6-5 victory over Kazakhstan’s Tamerlan Shadukayev in the last four.

In the 87kg event, Sunil Kumar stormed into the final after prevailing over Kazakhstan’s Azamat Kustubayev 6-6 in his semi-final bout, before downing Tajikistan’s Tokhirdzhon Okhonov 14-7 in the last eight stage.

But just like Gurpreet, Sunil too failed to clinch the top spot as he went down to Hossein Ahmad Nouri of Iran in the title clash.

Prem, another Indian who reached the bronze-medal play-off in the 130kg class despite going down to Muminjon Abdullaev of Uzbekistan in the quarter-finals, could not finish on the podium.

Prem had made it to the play-offs after Abdullaev reached the gold medal round. He lost to Kazakhstan's Damir Kuzembayev in the third-fourth place fight.

Earlier in the day, India's campaign ended in the 55kg and 63kg weight divisions when Manjeet and Vikram Krushnath Kurade lost their respective quarter-final bouts to bow out of the tournament.