Ulaanbaatar Ranking Series: Reetika Hooda wins women's 76 kg gold medal

Asian Wrestling Championships medallist Reetika Hooda continued her solid form on the international circuit to clinch the women's 76 kg freestyle gold medal at the Ulaanbaatar Ranking Series in Mongolia on Saturday.

Reetika took a close 5-2 win over former world championships medallist and home-favourite Enkh-Amaryn Davaanasan in the final round to top the pool stage and win the gold medal in her category with 3/3 wins.

Meanwhile, there were four more medals on the day for India –Silver for Deepak Punia (92 kg), Shiksha (65 kg), Pushpa (55 Kg), and Bronze for Jaideep (74 Kg).

Olympian Deepak won all three matches in the morning session to lead the round-robin event, but an injury forced him to miss the final match against a Russian wrestler, earning him a silver medal.

Meanwhile, Jaideep, who lost his semi-final match against the Asian Games champion, fought back in the bronze medal match against Mongolia's Tugsjargal Erdenebat to win his maiden senior medal.

Group stage exit for Asian Champion Manisha

The biggest shocker of the day was the group stage exit of recently crowned Asian champion Manisha Bhanwala in the women's 62 kg category.

She was placed in group A with two more wrestlers and has also begun her tournament with a win against Alina Kasabieva of UWW, but then she was pinned by former world champion Orkhon Purevdoj of Mongolia.

Orkhon, who had earlier lost her match to Alina, finished the group on top with this win, and Manisha finished third in the group behind Alina based on the criteria protocol and missed out on the semi-finals.

After the third day, India now has 17 medals - 6 Gold, 6 Silver, and 5 bronze medals.

The tournament reaches its final day on Sunday, with the last seven men's freestyle wrestling weight categories to be decided, and all eyes are on Aman Sehrawat, competing for the first time since his Paris Olympic medal.