India produced its greatest Asian Video games wrestling marketing campaign in additional than six many years, ending Aichi-Nagoya 2026 with six medals — two gold, two silver and two bronze — as Aman Sehrawat and Sujeet Kalkal emerged as champions and the nation’s grapplers made their presence felt throughout freestyle and Greco-Roman classes. The six-medal haul was India’s greatest on the Asian Video games since Jakarta 1962, when the nation gained 12 medals — three gold, six silver and three bronze, in keeping with Olympics.com. India’s two gold medals in Aichi-Nagoya got here via Aman in males’s freestyle 57kg and Sujeet in males’s freestyle 65kg, whereas Antim Panghal and Nitesh Siwach secured silver medals. Deepak Punia and Sunil Kumar added bronze medals.
Aman, India’s youngest Olympic medallist, produced one of the crucial spectacular performances of the marketing campaign by defeating reigning world champion Han Chong Tune of the Democratic Individuals’s Republic of Korea 11-7 within the 57kg remaining.
The Paris 2024 bronze medallist seemed to be in management after establishing a 6-1 lead, however Han fought again strongly to maneuver 7-6 forward.
Aman responded with an important four-point transfer to regain the benefit at 10-7 earlier than an unsuccessful problem from Han’s nook handed him one other level and successfully sealed the gold.
Han had gained each the 57kg World Championships and Asian Championships titles in 2025, making Aman’s victory one in all India’s vital wrestling wins on the Video games.
Aman had begun his marketing campaign with a 20-9 technical superiority victory over Japan’s Yamato Ogawa earlier than defeating Kazakhstan’s Nurdanat Aitanov 12-1 within the quarter-finals.
He then produced a comeback within the semi-finals towards Tajikistan’s Aiaal Belolyubskii. Trailing 6-2 after the opening interval, Aman turned the competition round to win 14-8 and guide his place within the remaining.
His gold was India’s second wrestling title at Aichi-Nagoya after Sujeet Kalkal had gained the lads’s freestyle 65kg class on Friday.
Sujeet’s victory additional strengthened India’s presence within the freestyle divisions and gave the nation two males’s wrestling gold medals on the identical Asian Video games.
Antim Panghal added a silver within the ladies’s 53kg class, ending runner-up to Japan’s Moe Kiyooka.
Kiyooka, the 2024 world champion within the 55kg class, defeated Antim 9-1 within the remaining after main 2-0 following the opening interval.
Antim, who gained bronze on the Hangzhou Asian Video games, had earlier produced a powerful run to succeed in the ultimate. She opened with a 9-0 victory over Kazakhstan’s Shugyla Omirbek earlier than beating Uzbekistan’s Sakibjamal Esbosynova by fall within the quarter-finals.
The Indian then overcame an early deficit to defeat China’s reigning Asian champion Zhang Jin 6-1 within the semi-finals.
The silver marked Antim’s second consecutive Asian Video games medal and added one other podium end to her rising worldwide file.
Deepak Punia, in the meantime, secured his second successive Asian Video games medal by profitable bronze within the males’s freestyle 97kg class.
Deepak defeated Mongolia’s Gankhuyag Ganbaatar 2-1 within the bronze-medal bout after lacking out on a spot within the remaining with a slender 9-8 loss to Uzbekistan’s Sherzod Poyonov.
The Indian had begun his marketing campaign with a 12-2 technical superiority win over China’s Junpeng Zhou and obtained a quarter-final walkover towards Hong Kong China’s Wui Fung Vincent Li.
Deepak’s bronze adopted the silver he gained at Hangzhou 2023.
India’s different silver got here in Greco-Roman wrestling, the place Nitesh Siwach completed runner-up within the 97kg class.
Sunil Kumar accomplished India’s medal tally with bronze in Greco-Roman 87kg, making certain the nation had illustration on the rostrum in each freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling.
There have been additionally slender misses for a number of Indian wrestlers.
Sagar Jaglan misplaced his males’s freestyle 74kg bronze-medal bout by fall to Kazakhstan’s Nurkozha Kaipanov, the 2024 world champion.
Within the ladies’s 57kg class, Manisha Bhanwala started with a win over South Korea’s Youngjin Kwon by fall however was eradicated within the quarter-finals after dropping 3-0 to Japan’s Olympic champion and two-time world champion Akari Fujinami.
Fujinami’s subsequent failure to succeed in the ultimate ended Manisha’s possibilities of coming into the repechage.
India’s six-medal haul at Aichi-Nagoya represented a big enchancment over a number of current Asian Video games campaigns.
The nation had gained two wrestling gold medals at Bangkok 1978 and Jakarta 2018, however completed with solely three medals at each editions.
The benchmark remained Jakarta 1962, the place Indian wrestlers produced 12 medals, together with three gold, six silver and three bronze.
Aichi-Nagoya due to this fact marked India’s strongest wrestling efficiency since that historic marketing campaign, with two gold medals offering the headline achievement and 4 extra podium finishes underlining the depth of the contingent.
Aman and Sujeet’s gold medals, Antim and Nitesh’s silver medals, and Deepak and Sunil’s bronze medals gave India a balanced return throughout the wrestling programme and capped a memorable marketing campaign for the nation’s grapplers on the 2026 Asian Video games.
(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
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