Sujeet Kalkal is a 23-year-old Indian freestyle wrestler from Imlota village in Haryana who has just become the country’s firstwrestling 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 the continental podium.
ran through the house. His father, Dayanand Kalkal, competed at national level and put him on the mat early. Training began at the local akhada in Imlota, where facilities were thin and experienced coaching was hard to find. He stayed there until 2020, then shifted to Sonipat in 2021 to spar with wrestlers who had already been on the senior circuit.
The medals followed quickly. In 2022, he won U23 and U20 Asian gold at 65kg and a senior Ranking Series title in Tunis. A bronze at the 2024 U23 Worlds came at 70kg. In 2025 he took a second U23 Asian crown, beat Paris bronze medallist Islam Dudaev 11-0 at the Budapest Ranking Series, and won the U23 World title in Serbia, becoming the first Indian man to do so at 65kg.
Paris still stings. He missed the Bishkek Olympic qualifier after being stranded in Dubai, then lost a 2-2 bronze bout to Zain Retherford in Istanbul.
In 2026, Sujeet Kalkal won the Zagreb Open and the Muhamet Malo event in Tirana, then the Asian Championships in Bishkek, and rose to world No. 1 at 65kg.
The final did not start like a gold-medal bout. Kudiev, a world medallist, stayed tight in defence, waited for Kalkal to reach, and punished the counters. The score ran to 2-9.
Kalkal reset after the break and went after the legs. Three takedowns closed the gap to 8-9. With the clock almost gone, he found one more opening and scored a two-point takedown with about 11 seconds left. The final score was 10-9, a win by points (VPO1).
Earlier, Kiyooka had led 2-0 after the first period of the semi-final. Kalkal scored three points in the second, the bout finished 3-3, and he went through on criteria after taking the last point.
United World Wrestling called it India’s first wrestling gold at the Asian Games since 2018, whenwon this same 65kg title and Vinesh Phogat also topped the podium in Jakarta.
Round of 16: beat Sayed Omar Zazai of Afghanistan 13-3 by technical superiority.
Quarter-final: beat Abbas Ebrahimzadehsavadkouhi of Iran 10-0.
Semi-final: beat Kotaro Kiyooka of Japan 3-3 on criteria.
Final: beat Abdulmazhid Kudiev of Tajikistan 10-9.
