Asian Wrestling C’ship: Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Phogat, Divya Kakran in race for gold

Three Indian women wrestlers, including Rio Olympic bronze medallist Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat, cruised into the gold medal round of their respective weight categories with comfortable victories in the Asian Wrestling Championship here on Friday.

Divya Kakran was the third Indian girl to have made the final of the women’s 69kg category.

Sakshi, Vinesh and Divya are now assured of at least a silver medal each.

Competing for the first time in women’s 60kg category after jumping up the weight division from 58kg, Sakshi hardly had to break a sweat en route to the final.

The 24-year-old got the better of Nabira Esenbaeva of Uzbekistan 6-2 in the quarterfinal and then defeated Ayaulym Kassymova 15-3 in her semifinal bout to storm into the gold medal round, scheduled later in the evening.

Even Vinesh (women’s 55kg) had it easy as she defeated Sevara Eshmuratova of Uzbekistan 10-0 in the quarters before thrashing China’s Qi Zhang 4-0.

A new girl on the block, Divya also put up an impressive show on her way to the gold medal round. She beat Chen-Chi Huang of Taipei 2-0 by fall verdict and then outplayed Hyeonyeong Park of Korea 12-4 in the semifinal.

However, Ritu Phogat (women’s 48kg) went down in her semifinal bout to Yui Susaki of Japan 0-9 to lose out on a place in the final but would fight for the bronze medal.

Pinki, meanwhile, was the lone Indian to have lost in the quarterfinal round of women’s 53kg to bow out of the tournament early.