Indian wrestlers faltered once again on the final day of Greco-Roman (GR) style bouts at the 2019 Wrestling World Championships in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan.
First up, Asian Wrestling Championships silver-medalist Gurpreet Singh took on Michael Wagner of Austria. Gurpreet cruised to an easy 6-0 win in the GR-77kg category round-of-64 bout.
In the next round, the grappler from India faced Serbia's Viktor Nemés. Gurpreet claimed the first point after a hard-fought take down. He went into the break with the lead.
READ| Wrestling World Championships: More disappointment for Indian Greco-Roman wrestlers
However, his Serbian opponent came back stronger to level the scores. Towards the dying minutes, Viktor slammed Gurpreet on the mat and the referee awarded him two points.
The Indian unsuccessfully challenged the decision and ended up on the losing side. The final scoreline read 3-1 in Viktor's favour.
Earlier in the day, India's Naveen Kumar lost 0-9 to Cuba's Oscar Pino Hinds on technical superiority in a GR-130kg first-round bout.
Oscar dominated Naveen throughout the contest and advanced to the pre-quarterfinals.
Another wrestler Manish represented India in the GR-60kg category. He overcame Lauri Maehoenen of Finland 11-3 in the round-of-32.
The Indian wrestler was trailing 0-3 initially, but in a brilliant turnaround he racked up 11 straight points to claim the victory. At 4-3, he had also lost a challenge, however, that didn't stop him from advancing to the next round.
In the pre-quarterfinals, Moldova's Victor Ciobanu finished off Manish in less than three minutes during a 9-0 win, thereby ending India's challenge in today's competition for the time being.
All the three Indian wrestlers who were in action today still have a minor chance of bagging a bronze medal as the opponents who beat them are still alive in the tournament.
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