Indian wrestlers started their Asian Games campaign impressively with Ravinder Singh and Sunil Kumar Rana clinching bronze medals in their respective weight categories in the Greco-Roman style here on Sunday.
Even though Ravinder could not repeat his Commonwealth Games gold-medal winning effort, he opened India’s account in wrestling by winning a bronze in the 60kg category and then another Delhi Games gold medallist Rana doubled the joy with another bronze in the 66kg.
While CWG gold medallist Ravinder defeated Muhammad Aliansyah of Indonesia 9-3 in the repechage to bag the bronze, Rana got the better of Sutep Oomchompoo of Thailand 4-2 to register his name in the medals tally.
In the 60kg category, Ravinder had won his first round bout against Nurbakyt Tengizbayev of Kazakhstan earlier in the day before losing to Jung Jihyun of South Korea 0-3 in the semifinals.
Rana beat Turkmenistan’s Yazgeldy Kadyrov 3-0 in the 66kg quarterfinals before going down to Saeid Abdvali of Iran in the semifinals.
However, it turned out to be a disappointing day for another CWG gold-medallist, Rajender Kumar as he crashed out of the men’s Greco-Roman 55kg wrestling competition after losing to Li Shujin of China in the first round.
