Picture Credit: Twitter
India’s Deepak Punia lost to Iran’s Hassan Yazdanicharati via a technical superiority 10-0 in the men’s 86kg freestyle final to take the silver at the ongoing Asian Games 2023 on October 7, Saturday. With this win, the Indian wrestler took the medal tally to 105 medals to stay firm at the fourth place.
Follow: Asian Games Medal Tally 2023
Deepak’s silver gave India its sixth medal among the wrestlers with Sunil Kumar (87kg), Antim Phangal (53kg), Sonam Malik (62kg), Aman Sehrawat (57kg) and Kiran Bishnoi (76kg) being the other winners at the ongoing Games. Notably, this was the second time, Punia faced his childhood idol and Olympic medallist.
Talking about Punia’s stint at the Asian Games 2023, Deepak put on an edgy win over Bahrain’s Magomed Sharipov in his qualification round, 3-2. However, he put a dominated win over Indonesia’s Randa Riandesta, winning by technical superiority and even outperformed Japan’s Shirai Shota 7-3 in the quarterfinals. The 24-year-old wrestler surpassed a tough rival in Uzbekistan’s Javrail Shapiev 4-3.
Additionally, the Indian wrestlers had a better result in the Games than the 2018 edition as the wrestlers got only three medals then which included Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat’s golds also.
