Wrestling World Championships: More disappointment for Indian Greco-Roman wrestlers
Ravi R (Greco-Roman(GR) - 97kg) lost to Czech Republic's Artur Omarov in the pre-quarters, while Manish M (GR - 67kg) and Sunil Kumar (GR - 87kg) made first-round exits.
Published : Sep 15, 2019 14:54 IST
In another disappointing day for India, the country's Greco-Roman (GR) wrestlers failed to make a mark at the 2019 Wrestling World Championships (WWC) in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan.
Ravi R was the lone Indian to reach the second-round on day two. He beat Cheng-Hao Chen of Chinese Taipei 5-0 to become the first wrestler from the sub-continent to advance to the pre-quarterfinals at the WWC.
Ravi kept his opponent down on the mat for long to register an easy win. However, in his next bout, Artur Omarov of Czech Republic completely floored him and romped to a 7-0 win in under three minutes.
READ| Wrestling World Championships: Dismal start by India’s Greco-Roman wrestlers
The other two GR Indian wrestlers in action on Sunday, Manish M and Sunil Kumar, exited the Championships without winning a single round. Olympic quotas were up for grabs in all three categories.
Manish M was the first Indian Wrestler to fight on the day as he faced Bulgaria's Deyvid Dimitrov in the GR - 67kg category on mat C. Manish won the first point of the bout, however, his Bulgarian opponent levelled the scores, just seconds before the end of the first three minutes.
After the break, Dimitrov came out all guns blazing to reach the 10-point mark and finish off Manish, who wasn't able to add any more points to his tally, in dominant fashion. The referee had stopped the bout with more than a minute to go on the clock.
Just minutes after Manish's 1-10 loss, his countryman and 2019 Asian Wrestling Championship silver-medalist Sunil Kumar took on USA's Joe Rau in the GR - 87kg category on the same mat.
Right from the word go, Rau dominated his Indian opponent and won the bout 6-0. Sunil became the sixth consecutive Indian to exit the Wrestling World Championships in the very first round. And Ravi finally broke this unwanted record later in the day, only to falter at the next hurdle.