Asian Wrestling Championship: India's Harpreet Singh wins bronze in Greco-Roman weight category

Indian wrestler Harpreet Singh on 10 May 2017 won a bronze medal in the Greco-Roman weight divisions on the opening day of the Asian Wrestling Championship. In the opening match played in New Delhi, Harpreet defeated his rival Jun Ji Na of China 3-2 in 80kilogram category.

In addition to this, another Indian wrestler Gurpreet Singh lost his bronze medal bout 0-8 in just 38 seconds to Bin Yang of China. He earlier entered the bronze medal play-off round of Greco-Roman weight divisions in the 75 kilogram category.

Earlier in the day, three other Indian Greco-Roman wrestlers -- Ravinder, Hardeep and Naveen -- were knocked out of the tournament.

South Korea with a tally of five medals including one gold, three silver and a bronze emerged as the most successful nation on the day.

In the competition, 112 freestyle, 103 Greco-Roman and 83 female wrestlers are vying for 24 Gold and Silver, and 48 bronze medals.

India had bagged 9 medals - 1 Gold, 3 Silver and 5 Bronze - in the last edition of the tournament held in Bangkok in 2016.

What is Greco Wrestling?
Greco-Roman wrestling is a style of wrestling that is practised worldwide. It was contested at the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 and has been included in every edition of the summer Olympics held since 1908.

This style of wrestling forbids holds below the waist. This restriction results in an emphasis on throws because a wrestler cannot use trips to take an opponent to the ground or avoid throws by hooking or grabbing the opponent's leg. This restriction makes Greco Wrestling different from the freestyle wrestling practised in wrestling in different championship including Olympics.

United World Wrestling counts Greco-Roman wrestling as one of the six main forms of amateur competitive wrestling practised internationally. The other five forms are

• Freestyle wrestling

• Grappling/Submission wrestling

• Traditional/Folk wrestling

• Beach wrestling

• Alysh/Belt wrestling

• Pankration athlima