A dominating Bajrang Punia was one win away from clinching his maiden Asian Games gold medal but it was all over Sushil Kumar who crashed out of the mega sporting event after losing his first bout in Jakarta on Sunday.
Commonwealth Games gold medallist Bajrang, who got a bye in the first round, won all three bouts by technical superiority, asserting his class in the 65kg category. He outclassed Uzbekistan’s Sirojiddin (13-3), Tajikistan’s Fayziev Abdulqosim (12-2) and Mongolia’s N Batmagnai Batchuluu (10-0) to storm into the gold medal bout.
Sushil Kumar (74kg), Sandeep Tomar (57kg) and Mausam Khatri (97kg) lost their bouts and bowed out of medal contention while Pawan Kumar qualified for the bronze medal bout through repechage.
Two-time Olympic medallist Sushil, who was exempted from the Asiad trials, lost 3-5 to Bahrain’s Adam Batirov in the 74 kg category. He had come into the Games after losing his first bout in four years.
“I did not expect this. I did not have any big competition under my belt and that was the main reason for my defeat. But it’s part of sport. I will train harder and come back,” said Sushil.
“I was not passive. I tried,” he added.
Also read: Asian Games Day 1, live blog
In the second half, Sushil tried to score more takedowns but the Bahraini was quite strong in his defence and ended up winning two points twice to take the lead. Batirov maintained his composure till the end, to send Sushil crashing out.
Tomar, earlier, won an entertaining bout against Turkmenistan’s Rustem Nazarov, coming through a 12-8 winner in the 57 kg category. Tomar, who was the last wrestler to book a berth for the Games through trials, showed immense promise before crashing out in the quarterfinals.
He won his second round bout 12-8 against Turkmenistan’s Rustem Nazarov but was outwitted 9-15 by Iran’s Reza Atrinagharchi. The Iranian lost his semifinal and this led to Tomar crashing out of the competitions.
Tomar put up a brave fight and was locked 6-6 with his tactically superior Iranian rival. In the second, though, Reza just ran away with the bout with his big-scoring moves.
Mausam Khatri was outplayed 0-8 in the 97 kg by Uzbekistan’s Magomed Ibragimo. Khatri remained passive throughout the bout and never made any attacking move.
In the 86kg, Pawan Kumar made a rousing start by blanking Heng Vuthy of Cambodia 8-0 but later lost to reigning world champion Hassan Yazdani Charati of Iran by Technical Superiority. He is still in with a shot for bronze.
(More details to follow through the day...)
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