Bishkek: The champion’s title continued to elude Indian wrestlers at the Asian Championships with Railways wrestler Anju, who had outclassed Vinesh Phogat in the selection trials, and Harshita settling for silver medals even as Sarita Mor was eliminated after a shock defeat in her opening round here on Sunday.
Competing in a highly-competitive 53kg weight category, Anju logged back-to-back wins by technical superiority against Philippines’ Aliah Rose Gavalez and Sri Lanka’s Nethmi Ahinsa Fernando.
She faced some resistance from China’s Chun Lei before prevailing 9-6 in the semifinal.
In the final, Anju clashed with North Korea’s Ji Hyang Kim but, much to the surprise of the everyone, she could not score even a single point and lost the gold-medal match by technical superiority.
Harshita conceded just three points en route the final, outclassing Uzbekistan’s Ozoda Zaripboeva by technical superiority (13-3) and beating Kazakhstan’s Anastassiya Panassovich 5-0.
However, she could not find a way to go past China’s Qian Jiang, losing the 72kg title clash 2-5.