Sunil Kumar on Tuesday overpowered Azat Salidinov of Kyrgyzstan 5-0 in the 87kg summit bout to win India’s first Greco-Roman gold medal at Asian Wrestling Championships in 27 years.

Competing in the gold medal bout after a come-from-behind victory in the semifinal, Kumar comprehensively defeated his opponent in the final of 87kg category at the KD Jadhav Indoor Stadium in New Delhi on Tuesday.

Earlier, Kumar was down 1-8 in his semifinal bout against his Kazakh opponent Azamat Kustubayev but made a great comeback, grabbing 11 points on the trot to win the bout at 12-8.

In 2019 also, Kumar had made it to the final and ended with a silver medal.

Another Indian, Arjun Halakurki won a bronze in Greco-Roman 55kg, his first medal at his first senior international event. He was leading 7-1 against Iran’s Naserpour but lost 7-8 in the semifinal.

Before Sunil, Pappu Yadav had won the 48kg Greco-Roman title in 1993.

Sunil with his comprehensive defence, was able to keep Salidinov at bay for most part of the bout.Salidinov did not have any answer to the Indian’s strategy and finally went down pretty easily.