Gourav Baliyan lost to Arsalan Budazhapov of Kyrgyzstan in the final and settled for a silver medal in the 79 kg freestyle category at the Asian Wrestling Championship in Delhi.

18-year-old Gourav who is regarded as one of the most promising wrestlers at the moment in the country showed from round one that he is fully prepared for the international stage.

He got the better of Mongolian wrestler Batzul Damjzin in the quarter-finals and Japanese grappler Shinkichi Okui at the last four stages.

The closely contested final saw the pendulum swinging from one side to another and finally, the grappler from Kyrgyzstan got the better of Gourav by 7-5 points.

Asian Wrestling Championship is one of the ranking events where the top wrestlers of the continent are getting a chance to improve their ranking points and later they will get an opportunity to take part in the Olympics qualification events. If the ranking gets better they will get an easier draw in the initial rounds of the qualification events.

On the 27th of this month, Gourav will take part in the selection trials first at Sonepat and if he clears the trials the next step will be Asian zone Olympics qualifier.