Asian Wrestling Championship: Praveen Rana clinches silver, Satyawart Kadian settles for bronze

Star Indian grappler Praveen Rana settled for a silver medal in the ongoing 2019 Asian Wrestling Championship after going down against Iran's Bahman Mohammad Teymouri in the final of the men's 79 kg category at Xi'an in China on Tuesday. 

The 23-year-old from New Delhi looked a little out of touch and went down by 0-3 against his Iranian opponent to finish his campaign with silver and hand India its second medal on the opening day of the tournament. 

Rana had earlier defeated Kazakhstan's Galymzhan Usserbayev 3-2 in the semi-finals to book his place in the summit showdown of the tournament.

The Indian grappler had overcome Yuta Abe of Japan and Mongolia's Tugs Erdene Denzensharav in his previous rounds earlier in the day.

Meanwhile, Satyawart Kadian--the other Indian in the fray--settled for a bronze medal in the 97kg category. 

Earlier, world number one Bajrang Punia handed India its first gold medal at the Asian Wrestling Championships 2019 after knocking out Asian Games bronze-medallist Sayatbek Okassov of Kazakhstan.

The 25-year-old from Haryana was trailing by 2-5 in the final of the men's 65kg freestyle category when he rebounded strongly to overcome Okassov 12-7 to bag the top honors.