The prestigious Asian tournament kicked off on Wednesday morning in the Indian capital where out of five Iranian athletes who met rivals in Greco-Roman division, one bagged a bronze medal and three found their ways to the final round.
As such, Ramin Taheri of Iran struck on off draw in the qualification round of 80kg weight category and later downed Kazakhstan’s Samat Shirdakov by technical fall 8-0. He later overcame another Kazakh wrestler called Danyal Gajiyev in the semifinals. In the final debut, the Iranian athlete will take up the winner of the other semifinal contest between Junjie Na of China and South Korea’s Junehyoung Kim.
Competing at 98-kilogram weight group, Seyed Mostafa Salehizadeh breezed past Yerulan Iskakov of Kazakhstan 7-1 in the opening round before quelling the host country’s Hardeep Hardeep 5-0 in the quarterfinals. He later subdued Di Xiao of China to set up a date with Seungjun Kim from South Korea.
Heavyweight wrestler Behnam Mehdizadeh was the third Iranian athlete to receive tickets to finals as he won over Japan’s Arata Sonoda (9-0) in a semifinal match. He is slated to take up Damir Kuzembayev of Kazakhstan while he had previously trounced Korea’s Minseok Kim (3-1).
Ali Arsalan, however, suffered a defeat against South Korean rival Sanghun Oh 5-9 and was led to the repechage round where he will meet Elmurat Tasmuradov who holds world and Olympic bronze medals. Arsalan had prevailed over North Korea’s Jinchol Pang (2-0) and host country’s Ravinder Ravinder (5-3) in the first two rounds.
Iran’s representative at 75kg category Pejman Pashtam, while thrashing Palestine’s Rabie K. A. Khalil (8-0) by technical fall in the qualification round, failed to Bin Yang of China in the quarterfinals. Given that the Chines rival was later quelled by the Kazakh wrestler Maxat Yerezhepov, Pashtam’s hopes to claim medals at the Asian Championships faded.
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