Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan), April 14: The champion’s title continued to elude Indian wrestlers at the Asian Championships with Railways wrestler Anju, who had outclassed Vinesh Phogat in the selection trials, and Harshita settling for silver medals even as Sarita Mor was eliminated after a shock defeat in her opening round here on Sunday.
Competing in a highly-competitive 53kg weight category, Anju logged back-to-back wins by technical superiority against Philippines’ Aliah Rose Gavalez and Sri Lanka’s Nethmi Ahinsa Fernando.
She faced some resistance from China’s Chun Lei before prevailing 9-6 in the semifinal.
In the final, Anju clashed with North Korea’s Ji Hyang Kim but, much to the surprise of the everyone, she could not score even a single point and lost the gold-medal match by technical superiority.
Harshita conceded just three points en route the final, outclassing Uzbekistan’s Ozoda Zaripboeva by technical superiority (13-3) and beating Kazakhstan’s Anastassiya Panassovich 5-0.
However, she could not find a way to go past China’s Qian Jiang, losing the 72kg title clash 2-5.
However, a big shock was in store for the Indian squad as 2021 World Championship medallist Sarita lost her quarterfinal bout 4-8 to Mongolia’s Gantuya Enkhbat.
The 28-year-old was a medal favourite in this category.
Later Enkhbat lost her semifinal, closing the repechage route for the Indian.
Manisha Bhanwala (62kg) and Antim Kundu (65kg) won bronze medals.
Overall, India women wrestlers ended up with six medals – three silver and as many bronze.
Radhika had won a silver in 68kg competition while Shivanee Pawar had earned a bronze finish on Saturday.
In men’s freestyle wrestling, India had won a silver through Udit (57kg) while Abhimanyou (70kg) and Vicky (97kg) had clinched bronze in their respective categories. (PTI)
