The Afghan belt wrestlers won four bronze medals at the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games (AIMAG) in Ashgabat on Monday, bringing the total number of medals to six including one gold and one silver. 

Afghanistan’s Sayed Shafi, Mohammad Gul Pahlawanzada, Jawed Ahmad and Siyar Gul defeated their rivals at the event and raised the national flag at the international games.

However Afghanistan’s female taekwondo athlete Khadija Rezayee was defeated by her Chinese rival. But another female taekwondo athlete Farahnaz Yaqoubi defeated her Indian rival and but was then beaten by her Chinese competitor in the second round. 

In the male category, Afghanistan’s Bilal Zazai defeated his Saudi rival in the first round, but was beaten by his Kazakh rival in the second round.

The 21 sports on the Ashgabat 2017 programme are 3x3 basketball, belt wrestling, billiard sports, bowling, chess, dance sport, equestrian jumping, futsal, indoor athletics, indoor tennis, Ju-Jitsu, kickboxing, kurash, muaythai, sambo, short course swimming, taekwondo, track cycling, traditional wrestling, weightlifting and wrestling.

The 2017 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games kicked off in Turkmenistan’s capital, Ashgabat, on Saturday.

The fifth edition of the AIMAG will see a total of 21 sports contested across 15 venues over 12 days of competition.

More than 6,000 athletes and team officials will be representing 65 countries.