Asian Wrestling Championship: Bajrang Punia, Sarita enter gold medal bouts in respective categories

New Delhi: Bajrang Punia and Sarita entered the gold medal rounds of their respective weight categories after posting impressive victories on the penultimate day of the Asian Wrestling Championship, here today.

Both Bajrang (men's 65kg) and Sarita (women's 58kg) have ensured at least a silver medal each for the country.

The Indian women wrestlers have registered their best ever performance in the Asian Championship in this edition with five medals, including three silver so far.

In the 2003 edition, India had won a total of five medals that included two silver and three bronze.

En route the final of women's 58kg, Sarita put up a dominating show and outplayed Uzbekistan's Asem Seydametova 10-0 in the quarters before thrashing Thi Huong Dao of Vietnam 12-0 to make the final, scheduled later this evening.

Bajrang made the final of his weight division with a hard-fought 3-2 victory over Kukgwang Kim in the semifinal round.

Putting up a brilliant show on his way to the final, Bajrang got the better of last edition's Asian Championship gold-medallist Meisam Nassiri of Iran 7-5 in the quarterfinal after beating Uzbek wrestler Sirojiddin Hasanov 4-3 in the qualification round.

Satywart Kadian, Sakshi Malik's husband, went down in his repechage bout to lose out on a place in the bronze medal play-off in men's 97kg.

He lost to Batzul Ulziisaikhan of Mongolia 5-8 in a closely-fought contest.

In the qualification round, Satywart lost to Magomed Ibragimov 2-2, but since the Uzbek grappler made the gold medal round, the Indian got a chance to fight in repechage.

Meanwhile, Olympian Sandeep Tomar suffered a knee injury to bow out of the tournament early in men's 57kg.

Tomar was in a winning position when he sustained the injury and went down 6-5 to Ulukbek Zholdoshbekov of Kyrgyzstan.

In men's 74kg, Jitender crashed out of the tournament after losing to Tsubasa Asai of Japan in the quarterfinal round 7-8.