Indian wrestlers finished the Ulaanbaatar Open 2026 wrestling tournament strongly with Dinesh Dhankhar (125kg) and Deepak (61kg) winning gold medals in their respective men’s freestyle categories on Sunday.
The 25-year-old Dinesh produced an impressive campaign before edging U20 world champion Yedige Kassimbek of Kazakhstan 2-0 in the gold medal bout.
Earlier in the tournament, Dinesh defeated World Championships bronze medallist Robert Baran of Poland 5-1 in the quarter-finals and then overwhelmed Timur Kotaev 11-0 by technical superiority in the semi-finals.
Dinesh Dhankhar had earlier won a bronze medal at the Zagreb Open earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Deepak added a gold medal in the 61kg category after beating Kazakhstan’s Assyl Aitakyn 6-0 in the final.
The 24-year-old Indian wrestler had opened his campaign with a dominant 6-0 victory over Bair Baianduev in the quarter-finals before overcoming Kazakhstan’s Adilet Almukhamedov 7-1 in the semi-finals.
India also secured two bronze medals on the concluding day of competition.
In the men’s 57kg division, Sumit bounced back from his quarter-final defeat to register a 6-3 win against Kazakhstan’s Abzal Okenov in the bronze medal match.
Sumit had earlier defeated the Republic of Korea’s Sangboum Han by technical superiority before losing to Musa Mekhtikhanov 7-1 in the quarter-finals.
Mohit Kumar claimed bronze in the men’s 65kg category after defeating Kazakhstan’s Ossimzhan Dastanbek 17-6 by technical superiority in the medal bout.
Mohit had kept himself in contention for a medal through repechage with a victory over USA’s Christopher James Composto.
India concluded the four-day competition with a total of 16 medals, which included eight golds.
In the men’s freestyle category, Asian Games-bound Sagar Jaglan won the 74kg division while teenager Kajal Dhochak (76kg), Manisha Bhanwala (57kg) and Neha Sangwan (59kg) topped the podium in women’s wrestling.
Greco-Roman wrestlers Sunil Kumar (87kg) and Nitesh Kumar (97kg) had won gold medals on the opening day of the competition in Mongolia.
The Ulaanbaatar Open was the third UWW Ranking Series event of the season, which also served as part of the build-up to the 2026 Asian Games for the Indian wrestlers.
READ MORE: https://www.olympics.com/en/news/ulaanbaatar-open-2026-wrestling-india-day-4-results
