Vinesh, who also made a comeback after a long injury lay-off, was lagging behind from the very beginning against a strong Japanese competitor Sae Nanjo and ultimately went down 4-8 to settle for the second position in women's 55kg category.
Three Indian women wrestlers, including Rio Olympics bronze medallist Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat, settled for a silver medal each in their respective weight categories at the Asian Wrestling Championship. All the three Indians lost to their respective Japanese opponents, who proved to be too strong for them.
Vinesh (55kg) put a good fight before going down, whereas her other compatriots Sakshi and Divya Kiran did not even last their entire six minutes during their gold-medal bouts.
Soon after, Vinesh tweeted pouring out her gratitude towards her supporters and sponsors.
Vinesh, who also made a comeback after a long injury lay-off, was lagging behind from the very beginning against a strong Japanese competitor Sae Nanjo and ultimately went down 4-8 to settle for the second position in women's 55kg category.
The Japanese girl took very little time to prove her mettle, bagging four quick points by taking down Vinesh twice before earning another two to make it 6-0 at the break. In the second half, Vinesh came back strongly and quickly took down the Japanese wrestler to win two points and narrow the gap to 2-6. But the Japanese extended her lead by making it 8-2.
Although Vinesh, who is returning to the mat after the last year's Rio Games where she had suffered an injury, managed to get two more points but it was not enough in the end. The 22-year-old, earlier in the day, had posted comfortable victories during her quarterfinal and semifinal bouts.
She defeated Sevara Eshmuratova of Uzbekistan 10-0 in the quarterfinal before thrashing China's Qi Zhang 4-0 in the semifinal to storm into the gold medal round. Vinesh, who generally fights in 48kg or 53kg but chose to climb to 55kg for the Asian Championship, said that she was happy to have finished with a silver in a higher weight category.
(With inputs from PTI)
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 "Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik, Asian Wrestling Championship, wrestling, Tweet, Web Exclusive")
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