Wrestling: Vinesh bags silver; Narsingh Yadav wins bronze in Asian championship

Vinesh settled for silver in Women's Freestyle 48kg division after losing her final bout to Japan's Yuki Irie, while Narsingh Pancham Yadav bagged a bronze in Men's 74kg category in the Senior Asian Wrestling championship in Doha on Thursday.

Vinesh put up an impressive show before going down in the final, while Narsingh was lucky to have reached the bronze medal play-off despite losing in the qualification round initially.

On her way to the final, Vinesh comfortably beat Tatyana Amanzhol-Bakatyuk of Kazakhstan in the semifinals after getting the better of Mongolia's Tsogtbaatar Byambazaya in quarterfinals 8-0.

In the final bout, however, Vinesh could not overcome the challenge from her Japanese opponent, who proved to be too strong for the Indian girl. Vinesh lost 2-3 in the end.

Narsingh, who has been included in 74kg category in the absence of double-Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar, lost to Daisuke Shimada of Japan 9-12 in the qualification round but could make it to repachage after his Japanese rival reached the final.

During his repachage bout, Narsingh defeated Byungmin Kong of Korea 15-4 to enter the bronze-medal play-off. He then bagged 3-1 classification points to outplay Zhiger Zakirov of Kazakhstan and clinched the bronze medal.

In Men's 70kg category, Parveen Rana missed out on a third-place finish as he went down fighting to Takafumi Kojima of Japan in the bronze medal play-off.

Rana had earlier lost to Uzbekistan's Bekzod Abdurakhmonov 8-13 by Fall in the semifinals. En-route to the semis, however, Rana did well to beat Tat Du Can of Vietnam 12-2 in his quarterfinal bout after clearing the qualification round against Sri Lanka's Shanaka Madushanka Ranwalage by fall, 2-0.

Meanwhile, other Indians in the fray on Thursday -- Sonu and Khatri Mausum -- failed to make it to the medal round.

In Men's 61kg category, Sonu was defeated by Masakazu Kamoi of Japan 5-1 in the qualification round itself, while Japan's Takeshi Yamaguchi defeated Khatri Mausam 10-6 in the quarterfinals of 97kg category. Mausam got the better of CUI Xiaocheng of China 8-0 in the qualification round earlier.

Also Read: Geeta Phogat wins bronze in women's freestyle, Hitender Beniwal misses out