Emzar Makharadze, the foreign expert with the Indian Greco-Roman team, was fuming by the time the repechage draw was being decided. Of the four Indians in the fray on the opening day of the Senior Asian Wrestling Championships, two — Ravinder Singh (60kg) and Naveen Suhag (120kg) — were beaten in their opening rounds.
What really irked the big Georgian was that a few of the fifty-fifty decisions had not gone the way of the Indians and that had played a part in those losses. But more than that, it was the realisation that India's performance in the Greco-Roman discipline, which had begun to show an improvement post the Commonwealth Games, had fallen back once again and that hurt him more.
" We don't have good replacements. If we have a good wrestler anywhere, the No.2 ranked is nowhere near as good," he said. And within minutes those words sounded prophetic. Gaurav Sharma, who had replaced the injured Rajendra Kumar in the 55 kg category, was soundly beaten in the bronze-medal bout by North Korea's Yun Won Chol in two one-sided rounds. In fact, the first move of the match resulted in six points in the Korean's kitty. He first flipped over Sharma, using his upper body strength and then rolled him over on the mat twice. The next round was equally one-sided. Gaurav lost 6-0 and 7-0.
Up next was Sunil Rana in the 66kg weight division and he cut a sorry figure too. He was beaten in the bronze medal bout by Kazakhstan's Yerbol Konyratov, who benefited from caution points in two of the three rounds. "A few of the wrestlers are nearing the exit, a few have gone already and we don't have good guys coming up. What more can we do?" said a coach.
What really irked the big Georgian was that a few of the fifty-fifty decisions had not gone the way of the Indians and that had played a part in those losses. But more than that, it was the realisation that India's performance in the Greco-Roman discipline, which had begun to show an improvement post the Commonwealth Games, had fallen back once again and that hurt him more.
" We don't have good replacements. If we have a good wrestler anywhere, the No.2 ranked is nowhere near as good," he said. And within minutes those words sounded prophetic. Gaurav Sharma, who had replaced the injured Rajendra Kumar in the 55 kg category, was soundly beaten in the bronze-medal bout by North Korea's Yun Won Chol in two one-sided rounds. In fact, the first move of the match resulted in six points in the Korean's kitty. He first flipped over Sharma, using his upper body strength and then rolled him over on the mat twice. The next round was equally one-sided. Gaurav lost 6-0 and 7-0.
Up next was Sunil Rana in the 66kg weight division and he cut a sorry figure too. He was beaten in the bronze medal bout by Kazakhstan's Yerbol Konyratov, who benefited from caution points in two of the three rounds. "A few of the wrestlers are nearing the exit, a few have gone already and we don't have good guys coming up. What more can we do?" said a coach.
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