Xi’an (China): India’s Gurpreet Singh settled for a silver medal in Greco-Roman 77kg at the Asian Wrestling Championships here Saturday. On the penultimate day of the competition, Gurpreet had to be satisfied with a second spot finish after being handed a 0-8 defeat by Hyeonwoo Kim of Korea in the final.
However on his way to the final, Gurpreet put up an impressive show, thrashing Bakhit Sharif K Badr of Qatar 10-0 in the quarterfinals before eking out a narrow 6-5 victory over Tamerlan Shadukayev of Kazakhstan in the last four round.
In 87kg, Sunil Kumar stormed into the final after prevailing over Azamat Kustubayev of Kazakhstan 8-6 in his semifinal bout. He will take on Hossein Ahmad Nouri of Iran in the title clash later in the day. Earlier, Sunil had beaten Tokhirdzhon Okhonov of Tajikistan 14-7 in the last eight stage.
Prem is another Indian wrestler who is in contention for a medal after he made the bronze medal play-off in 130kg category despite going down to Muminjon Abdullaev of Uzbekistan in the quarterfinals. He will fight for a bronze against Kazakhstan’s Damir Kuzembayev.
However, India’s campaign got over early in the 55kg and 63kg weight divisions when Manjeet and Vikram Krushnath Kurade lost their respective quarterfinal bouts to bow out of the tournament.
