Asian Games: Wrestlers bring home more medals, athlete O P Jaisha wins bronze in women's 1500m race
Incheon: Wrestler Bajrang and the men's tennis combination of Sanam Singh and Saketh Myneni picked up silver medals but India dropped a rung to the 10th position in the overall standings on the 10th day of competitions in the 17th Asian Games here on Monday.
Apart from Bajrang and the tennis team's silver-winning feats, athlete O P Jaisha (women's 1500m race) and wrestler Narsingh Pancham Yadav (74kg) clinched bronze medals on a rather mixed day for the Indian contingent.
Bajrang (61kg) was the star performer as he scripted remarkable come-from-behind victories to reach the final where he ultimately succumbed to Massoud Mahmoud of Iran in a closely-contested bout.
The wrestlers continued to provide the much-needed boost to India's medal collection as Narsingh Yadav also claimed a bronze in the men's 74kg freestyle event.
With the addition of four medals today, India slipped to the 10th position with a total of haul of 39 -- four gold, seven silver and 28 bronze. China maintained their supremacy with a tally of 231 (110-69-52) followed by hosts South Korea 144 and Japan 131.
Bajrang and Narsingh capped off India's freestyle wrestling competition on a high with the country earning five medals from the mat.
Bajrang lost 1-3 to Massoud Mahmoud in the finals, while Narsingh got the better of Daisuke Shimada of Japan 3-1 in the men's 74kg division to finish third on the podium.
Pawan Kumar went down fighting in his repechage bout in 86kg division to crash out of the event.
India's kabaddi players also continued their fine form. The six-time champions notched up their second successive win after thrashing Thailand 66-27 in a Group A preliminary-round match.
The Japanese managed to pick up the first two points and, at the end of first round, was leading 2-0. Bajrang, however, fought back in the second round and made a strong comeback to level the scores 2-2. He scored the last point in the bout to finally wrap it up 3-1 (classification point) to enter the final.
Narsingh and Pawan did not have a great start but they could make it to the repechage round. Narsingh, who lost 1-3 to Uzbekistan's Rashid Kurbanov in the Round of 16, defeated Ramazan Kambarov of Turkmenistan 4-1 in a victory by fall verdict in his repechage round to enter the bronze medal play-off.
Pawan, however, lost his repechage bout against China's Zhang Feng 1-4 (decision by points), failing to enter the bronze medal round. Pawan had earlier won his Round of 16 against Nepal's Sumir Kumar Sah by Great Superiority but went down to Meisam Mostafajoukar in the quarterfinals after he was completely outplayed 0-4 by the Iranian wrestler.
