Incheon: The Indian wrestling squad may be without the double-Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar, but with London Games bronze winner Yogeshwar Dutt spearheading the challenge, the country would look to end 28-year wait for a gold in grappling at the Asian Games when they start their campaign on saturday
Although the wrestlers had won just three bronze medals at the Guangzhou edition of the Games in 2010, including two in Greco-Roman, India have a strong contingent this time around with the likes of Amit Kumar, Babita Kumari, Vinesh Phogat, besides Yogeshwar who are expected to take the plunge to vastly improve on that show.
The fact that the grapplers had a good preparation running up to the multi-sporting event, adds to the country's medal hopes. They had, in fact, skipped the FILA World Championships at Tashkent earlier this month to save themselves for the Asiad.
The two-time Commonwealth Games champion Yogeshwar so far has 100 per cent record in his new weight category—Men's Freestyle 65kg—as he won gold both times he had competed at international level—International Wrestling tournament at Sassari city, Italy in June and Glasgow CWG.
Besides Yogeshwar, the Indian team would also be banking on CWG gold medallist 20-year-old Amit Kumar (57kg) for a top finish at the podium.
Amit's bout is lined-up tomorrow with his first match against formidable Japan rival Fumitaka Morshita, who had finished third in the Asian Championships two years ago and in the World Championships recently.
Other Indians in the rank—Bajrang (61kg), former Commonwealth Games champion Narsingh Yadav (74kg), Parveen Rana (70kg) and Satyawart Kadian (97kg) will also fancy their chances.
After a brilliant show in Glasgow, the women wrestlers Vinesh (48kg), Babita (55kg), Geetika Jakhar (63kg), and Jyoti (75kg) would also be keen to bag a medal.
