New Delhi, Oct. 2 -- Sujeet Kalkal is a 23-year-old Indian freestyle wrestler from Imlota village in Haryana who has just become the country's first Asian Games wrestling gold medallist since 2018. On Friday at the Nagoya City Inae Sports Center, he beat Tajikistan's Abdulmazhid Kudiev 10-9 in the men's 65kg final after trailing 2-9. The same day he had already knocked out Japan's Paris 2024 Olympic champion, Kotaro Kiyooka.

Born on 5 November 2002, Sujeet Kalkal grew up in a wrestling family and now sits at the top of a weight class long owned by Yogeshwar Dutt and Bajrang Punia. He already holds the 2026 senior Asian Championship and the 2025 World Under-23 title. The Asiad gold completes a rapid climb from a modest village akhada to t...