Wushu players assure four medals for India at Asian Games 2018

Five Indians took the field in different categories of sanda competition and four won their respective events to be assured of at least a medal each.
Bronze medalist India's Surya Singh, left, and bronze medalist Vietnam's Truong Giang Bui during ceremonies at the wushu men's Sanda 60kg division at the 18th Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, Aug. 23, 2018. | AP
Bronze medalist India's Surya Singh, left, and bronze medalist Vietnam's Truong Giang Bui during ceremonies at the wushu men's Sanda 60kg division at the 18th Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, Aug. 23, 2018. | AP

JAKARTA: India were today assured of at least four medals in wushu competition of the Asian Games with all but one of them reaching the semifinals here.

Five Indians took the field in different categories of sanda competition and four won their respective events to be assured of at least a medal each.

The losing semifinalists will be awarded a bronze each.

All the semifinals will be held tomorrow.

Naorem Roshibini Devi was the first on the day to book a semifinal berth after beating Mubashra of Pakistan 2-0 in the women's sanda 60kg quarterfinals. She will face Cai Yingying of China in the semifinals.

Santosh Kumar then beat Phithak Paokrathok 2-1 of Thailand in a tight quarterfinal fight of the men's sanda 56kg category to book a last-four berth and be assured of a medal. He will meet Truong Giang Bui of Vietnam in the semifinals.

Surya Bhanu Partap Singh was the third Indian to be assured of a medal after he beat Jean Claude Saclag of Philippines 2-0 in the quarterfinals of the men's sanda 60kg. He will take on Erfan Ahangarian of Iran in the next stage.

The fourth Indian to be assured of a medal was Narender Grewal who beat Akmal Rakhimov of Uzbekistan 2-0 in men's sanda 65kg quarterfinal match.

He will play against Sem Foroud Zafari of Iran in the semifinals.

The only Indian to lose in the quarterfinals was Pardeep Kumar who went down 1-2 to Puja Riyaya of Indonesia in men's sanda 70kg quarterfinals.

Related Stories

No stories found.

X
The New Indian Express
www.newindianexpress.com