Indian grappler Udit went down in a close match in the men’s 57kg freestyle final to win silver at the 2024 Asian Wrestling Championships in Bishkek on Thursday.
The country also won two bronze medals through Abhimanyou and Vicky in the men’s freestyle 70kg and 97kg categories respectively.
While Abhimanyou defeated Begijon Kuldashev of Uzbekistan 6-5 in the bronze medal match, Vicky was able to beat home favourite Andrey Romanovitch Aronov 10-1 for India's third medal of the day.
But Rohit Kumar, the wrestler who shocked Bajrang Punia in the national trials, lost to Masanosuke Ono of Japan 3-5 in his bronze medal match in the men’s freestyle 65kg category.
In the 57kg final, the 19-year-old Udit and his Japanese opponent were locked 4-all with seconds left on the clock. But Kento Yumiya demonstrated his technique and drove Udit off the mat to earn the winning point for the gold medal.
The opening bout for Udit was up against Ebrahim Mahdi Khari from Iran and it was a tough match, but the Indian managed to overcome him with a 10-8 scoreline.
The 19-year-old then followed it up with a 6-4 victory against local hero Almaz Smanbekov and a 4-3 win against Kum Hyok Kim of South Korea.
Udit, the current Asian Under-20 champion, continued India’s good run in the category which has grapplers like Ravi Dahiya and Aman Sehrawat. The duo have won the title in the 57kg category for the past four consecutive years, Dahiya between 2020-2022 and Sehrawat in 2023.
Parvinder Singh was the only wrestler from the country who did not enter a medal round on the opening day when he lost 0-3 to Japan's Ryunosuke Kamiya in the men’s freestyle 79kg qualification round.
