Asian Games 2018: Vinesh Phogat wins India’s maiden women’s wrestling gold

Vinesh Phogat created history on Monday by becoming the first Indian women to win a wrestling gold at the Asian games. She beat Yuki Irie 6-2 in the final of the 50kg freestyle wrestling category to also bag the first medal in the women’s wrestling this competition.

The 23-year-old completely dominated the contest in the summit clash racing to a 4-0 lead before extending it to 6-2 and pocketing the victory.

She had earlier defeated Dauletbike Yakhshimuratova of Uzbekistan in the semi-finals, taking just 70 seconds to surge to a 10-0 lead to be eventually declared the winner by a technical superiority.

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Beginning her campaign against Yanan Sun of China – who had inflicted the leg injury on her during the Rio Olympics, which crushed Vinesh out of the tournament – she was on top of her game thumping the Chinese 8-2 to storm into quarter-finals. Then Vinesh routed Hyungjoo Kim of South Korea 11-0 to once again win by technical superiority and enter the last four.

Vinesh, who had earlier won the bronze medal at Incheon four years ago also became the first women wrestler to win back-to-back medals at the Asian Games.

Her incredible performance, however, failed to inspire the other Indian women wrestlers all of failed to complement Vinesh with another medal.

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2016 Rio Olympic bronze medallist, Sakshi Malik had begun well overcoming Salinee Srisombat of Thailand by a technical superiority victory in the opening round of the 62kg category. She then annihilated Kazakhstan’s Kassymova Ayaulym 10-0 to enter the last four stage but went down 7-8 to Aisuluu Tynybekova of Kyrgyzstan in the semis.

Sakshi was presented with another chance to win the bronze medal when she qualified through repechage but was beaten Rim Jong Sim of South Korea, who won by a technical superiority to claim the bronze.

Similarly, Pooja Dhanda – ruthless in her approach – also reached the semis before going down 0-10 to North Korea’s Jong Myong.

Meanwhile, two other wrestlers Pinki and Sumit Malik lost their opening bouts to crush out of the competition. While Pinki lost 0-10 to Mongolia’s Sumiya Erdenechimeg, Sumit went down to Parviz Hadibasmanj.