After winning three medals on day one of the Asian Championships in Xi’an, China India five more medals in men’s freestlye categories on Wednesday.
Amit Dhankar led the medal rush with a silver in 74 kg category. The 2013 Asian champion had to be content with a second-place finish this time as he suffered a 0-5 loss to Daniyar Kaisanov of Kazakhstan in the final.
The four other wrestlers in action on Wednesday also ended up with medals with Viky winning the silver medal in 92 kg, Commonwealth Games champion Rahul Aware winning the bronze in 61 kg, junior Asian champion Deepak Punia winning the bronze in 86 kg and Sumit Malik winning the bronze in 125 kg.
Dhankar, the senior most of the lot, entered the final after a confidence-boosting 5-0 win over Ilgiz Dzhakypbekov of Kyrgyzstan in the semi-finals but was unable to repeat the performance in the final which was rather one-sided.
The two favourites in this category, Adam Batirov of Bahrain and Yuhi Fujinami of Japan, were both out injured.
Another Indian who got the benefit of a player no-show was Viky. The former cadet world bronze medallist got a walkover in his quarter-final as Commonwealth Games champion Inam Butt of Pakistan failed to travel for the event.
The Indian then defeated Xiao Sun of China 3-2 in a closely contested bout. But the finals was a different battle for the yougster as Asian Games champion Alireza Mohammad Karimimachiani of Iran won the 11-0 inside the first period. This was, however, a good outing for Viky as he won his first medal at senior-level.
Punia was another wrestler who won his first medal at senior Asian Championships as he claimed a bronze medal after winning his play-off bout against Bakhodur Kodirov Tajikistan 8-2. The former cadet world champion was on course for reaching the final after winning his pre-quarterfinal 11-7 against Dovletmyrat Orazgylyjov of Turkmenistan and quarter-final against Zushen Lin 3-3.
But he ran into Kamran Ghorban Ghasempur of Iran in the semi-final. Punia lost that bout 0-10 inside the first minute.
Aware also suffered a loss via pin to an Iran wrestler – Behnam Ehsanpoor – in the quarter-final and it was only after Ehsanpoor reached the final that Aware got a chance in repechage.
In the bronze medal play-off, he beat Jincheol Kim of Korea 9-2 to add another medal to India’s tally. He had begun the day with a 10-0 win over Jahongirmirza Turobov of Uzbekistan.
The last medal of the day was brought my Sumit Malik in the 125 kg category. Sumit began his day with a quarter-final loss to Zhiwei Deng who later reached the final. By virtue of that, Malik got a chance in repechage and entered the bronze-medal play-off in which he defeated Farkhod Anakulov of Tajikistan 8-2.
On Tuesday, Bajrang Punia (gold), Parveen Rana (silver) and Satyawart Kadian (bronze) had won three medals for India, who finish second in the team standings behind Iran in men’s freestyle categories. The Asian powerhouse, which won 10 medals in the competition including six gold medals, was comfortably ahead of the rest of the pack.