Asian Wrestling Championships: Ravi Kumar wins first gold, Bajrang Punia settles for silver

Asian Wrestling Championships: Ravi Kumar won a gold medal after defeating Tajikistan’s Hikmatullo Vohidov in the final whereas Bajrang Punia settled for a silver.

India wrestler Ravi Kumar won his first Asian Championships gold medal after beating Tajikistan’s Hikmatullo Vohidov in the final whereas Bajrang Punia had to satisfy with silver after losing his gold medal bout at the KD Jadhav Wrestling Hall in New Delhi on Saturday.

Ravi Kumar defeated Hikmatullo 10-0 in the 57kg category. The wrestler had a phenomenal journey to his gold medal as he defeated world champion Yuki Takahashi in his first match and later also secured a win over 2-time world champion Nurislam Sanayev 7-2 to set up a title bout against Tajikstan’s Hikmatullo Vohidov.

For Bajrang, the final was a rematch of the 2018 World Championships final, but the star India wrestler failed to avenge his defeat, going down 10-2 in the 65kg category.

Earlier, Bajrang defeated the three opponents he faced in his weight category by technical superiority. The Asian Games gold medallist started the day with an 11-0 win over Tajikstan’s Dzamshed Sharifov. He then beat Uzbekistan’s Abbos Rakhmonov 12-2 in the quarter-final.

Bajrang then faced Iranian junior world champion Amirhossein Magshoudi. He won the bout 10-0 to go through to the final.

Another Indian wrestler Gourav Baliyan won a silver medal on his Asian Championships debut. He lost 7-5 to Kyrgyzstan’s Arsalan Budazhapov in the 79kg final.

Satyawart Kadiyan also had to settle for silver as he lost 10-0 to Mojtaba Mohammadshafie Goleij of Iran in the 97kg final.