Asian Wrestling Championships 2023: Anirudh Kumar wins bronze; India finish with 14 medals

Freestyle wrestler Anirudh Kumar won a solitary bronze medal on the final day to take India’s medals tally to 14 at the Asian Wrestling Championships 2023 in Astana, Kazakhstan.

Anirudh Kumar clinched the bronze in the 125kg men’s freestyle category after beating Uzbekistan’s Sardorbek Kholmatov via technical superiority (12-2) in the medal bout on Friday.

Anirudh Kumar had defeated Japan’s Taiki Yamamoto 8-2 in the qualification round but lost to eventual finalist Yusup Batirmurzaev of Kazakhstan 2-0 in the quarter-finals and made the bronze medal match.

None of the other four Indian wrestlers in action on the day made it to the medal round.

Olympian Deepak Punia finished empty-handed after losing in the 92kg freestyle quarter-finals to Bahrain’s Magomed Sharipov. In the 74kg, Yash Tushir lost in the qualification round to Japan’s Kirin Kinoshita but made the repechage round after the Japanese reached the final.

In the repechage round, Yash Tushir lost 11-1 to Korea’s Gong Byung-min.

Pankaj Malik was ousted in the quarter-finals of the 61kg category while Jonty Kumar bowed out in the 86kg freestyle quarter-finals.

Freestyle wrestler Aman Sehrawat bagged the solitary gold for India on Thursday. The Greco-Roman wrestlers won four medals while the women’s wrestlers bagged seven.

Asian Wrestling Championships 2023: India's medal winners

• Aman Sehrawat (men’s 57kg freestyle) - gold

• Anirudh Kumar (men’s 125kg freestyle) - bronze

• Deepak (men’s 79kg freestyle) - bronze

• Rupin (Greco-Roman 55kg) - silver

• Neeraj Chikara (Greco-Roman 63kg ) - bronze

• Sunil Kumar (Greco-Roman 87kg) - bronze

• Vikas (Greco-Roman 72kg) - bronze

• Antim Panghal (women’s 53kg freestyle) - silver

• Nisha Dahiya (women’s 68 kg freestyle) - silver

• Anshu Malik (women’s 57kg freestyle) - bronze

• Sonam Malik (women’s 62kg freestyle) - bronze

• Manisha (women’s 65kg freestyle) - bronze

• Reetika Hooda (women’s 72kg freestyle) - bronze

• Priya (women’s 76 kg freestyle) - bronze