Indians started their campaign at the Senior Asian Wrestling Championships on a disappointing note with all the grapplers in action in the Greco-Roman categories unable to land up with a medal.
The first day of the tournament at the KD Jadhav Stadium here saw Greco-Roman wrestlers in the 55kg, 66kg and 120kg in action.
Indian wrestlers were not expected to do well in the Greco-Roman events and Gaurav Sharma (55kg), Sunil Kumar Rana (66kg) and Naveen (120kg), who carried the expectations of the hosts on their sturdy shoulders on the opening day, were unable to force any changes in the script.
However, Sunil Kumar Rana and Gaurav Sharma were the best performers among the Indians on the day as they missed out on the bronze medal in their respective categories by a mere whisker.
Rana, who got a bye in the first round, had defeated China’s Gaoquan Zhang 2-0, 1-1 to reach the semifinal where he was totally outclassed by Kim Ji Hun of South Korea.
The Korean, who eventually won the gold medal by beating Iran’s M Zeidvand 1-0, 1-0 in the final, was too fast and technically sound for Sunil. He won the first round 4-0 before clinching the second round by a massive 7-0 margin pushing the Indian into the play-off for the bronze medal.
Up against Yerbol Konyratov of Kazakhstan for the bronze medal, Sunil gave a good account of himself. The Indian was the physically stronger of the two, but it was the Kazakh who drew first blood by clinching the first round 1-0 when the referee awarded a foul against Sunil.
Rana came back strongly to dominate the second period. He, too, was awarded a point for fouls committed by the Kazakh wrestler. In the decider, the two wrestlers were locked in an engaging battle before the match went into the tie-breaker after the completion of 1:30 minutes.
The local favourite won the toss and was given an advantage. He, however, failed to capitalise and conceded a point to end India’s medal hope on the first day of the championships.
“We came very close to winning a medal in this match. Had the Kazakh won the toss, we would have been at an advantage as both wrestlers were tired,” Indian Greco-Roman chief coach Hargobind Singh said after the bout.
Another bronze medal contender, Sharma, (55kg) was no match for DPR Korea’s Won Chul Yun, who defeated the local lad 0-6 0-7 in a one-sided contest that lasted around two minutes. Both periods were won by the North Korean due to technical fall, a victory achieved by outscoring the opponent by six points.
Sharma, wearing a red singlet, was surprised by an aggressive throw down from Yun who matted him in the initial few seconds to collect three points.
Yun then went on to decimate his opponent to wrap up the first period within the first minute.
Yun was far too superior for the Indian grappler as he whipped him in the next period as well to finish on the podium.
Indian assistant coach Emzar Maxaradze was livid after the defeats. The Georgian coach blamed biased officiating on the part of the referees, alleging that the Koreans were more favoured than the others.
“The referee is against us. They were more in favour of the Korean wrestlers. These things happen to us when we go to competitions outside India. It is now happening in India as well,” Maxaradze told The Pioneer.
“We were anyway not expected to do well in the Greco-Roman events, but this is plain cheating,” he fumed.
Earlier, Sharma had lost his quarterfinal bout to Korea’s Gyu-Jin Choi 2-4 0-2. As the Korean went on to enter the final, Sharma went into the bronze medal match thorough repechage rounds. The 55-kg Greco-Roman style was won by Korea’s Gyu-Jin Choi after he beat Shota Tanokura of Japan.
Earlier in the day, Ravinder Singh (60kg) lost to Korea’s Douk Gil 0-3 1-0 0-1 to bow of the championship. Naveen, too, lost his opening bout, to Iran’s Bashir Babajanzadeh in the 120-kg Greco-Roman category.