Sunil, who had won a silver medal in 2019 and followed it up with a gold in 2020, still managed to navigate past a tricky draw to finish on the podium, his third at the Asian level, by winning a bronze medal on the opening day of the Championship on Tuesday. (Twitter/Office of Kiren Rijiju) Despite it being just an eight-wrestler draw, former Asian champion Sunil Kumar was always facing an uphill battle to finish on the top of the podium again at the continental championship.
His weight category, 87kg, at the Asian Championship boasted the likes of another former champion, Nursultan Tursynov, last edition’s gold medallist Naser Alizadeh, and Uzbek Jalgasbay Berdimuratov. It was, by far, the toughest weight class.
Sunil, who had won a silver medal in 2019 and followed it up with a gold in 2020, still managed to navigate past a tricky draw to finish on the podium, his third at the Asian level, by winning a bronze medal on the opening day of the Championship on Tuesday.
The 23-year-old, however, came close to returning empty-handed from Ulaanbaatar. In his opening bout against Japan’s Masato Sumi, the second-seeded Indian found himself down by three points before staging a fine comeback to win 5-3 and advance to the semifinals.
#AsianWrestlingChampionship: Three of the five Greco Roman wrestlers of India🇮🇳, Sunil Kumar, Arjun Halakurki & Neeraj win bronze🥉 medals in Mongolia. pic.twitter.com/kTGuPNreG2
— All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) April 19, 2022
In the last four, he was outclassed by Berdimuratov, who won the gold last year in the 82kg division, and eventually lost 8-0 on technical superiority. In the bronze-medal playoff against home favourite Batbayar Lutbayar, Sunil showed his class to open up a 5-0 lead early in the bout before winning on technical superiority.
Sunil, who won India’s first Greco-Roman gold medal in nearly three decades at the Asian Championship in 2020, thus completed a hat-trick of continental medals. Not bad for someone who moved to Greco-Roman after not being considered ‘strong’ enough for freestyle wrestling.
Like Sunil, another wrestler who won a bronze medal on Tuesday, Arjun Halakurki, too had shifted from freestyle to Greco-Roman. Although in his case, it was more out of desperation. Halakurki comes from a village in Karnataka with very little wrestling pedigree. The Bagalkot native took up the sport after being inspired by his father, who was a dangal wrestler.
But after a decade of struggling to get into the freestyle team even at the state level, he moved to Greco-Roman, where he tasted immediate success because of his upper body strength. He displayed that in abundance during his 55kg category bronze medal bout on Tuesday, defeating Mongolia’s Davaabandi Munkh Erdene 10-7.
3 GR 🥉 ON DAY 1⃣ TO START OFF!
A superb start to Asian C'ship for 🇮🇳 as we secure 3 🥉 in Greco-Roman!
'20 Asian 🥉 Arjun Halakurki got the better of 🇲🇳 while youngster Neeraj defeated 🇺🇿 to secure their 🏅!
'20 Asian 🏆 Sunil Kumar added to his laurels by defeating 🇲🇳! pic.twitter.com/FitI3Wz939
— SPORTS ARENA🇮🇳 (@SportsArena1234) April 19, 2022
It was a swift recovery, after a morale-sapping defeat to Kazakhstan’s Amangali Bekbolatov in the quarterfinals. But Halakurki did well to win his second Asian Championship bronze medal.
India’s third medal of the day came in the 63kg class, where Neeraj got the better of Uzbekistan’s Islomjon Bakhramov 7-4 to earn a podium finish. He had reached the play-off after losing his quarterfinal to eventual champion Tynar Sharshenbekov of Kyrgyzstan.
However, Sajan Bhanwal missed out on a bronze when he was outplayed by Japan’s Kodai Sakuraba in the 77kg category. Prem Kumar bowed out after losing his opening 130kg qualification bout 0-5 to Iran’s Amir Mohammadali Ghasemimonjazi.
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