India’s disappointing run in the Greco-Roman section at the Wrestling World Championships continued on Monday as two more Indian grapplers bowed out while one remained in the repechage round after losing his opener on the third day of the tournament in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan.
Naveen went down to Oscar Pino Hinds from Cuba 9-0 in the first qualification round of 130kg but is still in medal contention.
Up against the 2018 Pan-American champion, Naveen lost his qualification bout by technical superiority. However, Pino has reached the semi-finals and if he wins one more bout, Naveen will get a repechage round to be in contention for a bronze medal as well as Tokyo Olympic qualification.
India’s Gurpreet Singh started strong, beating Austria’s Michael Wagner 6-0 in the qualification round of the 77kg category. However, he went down to world No 2 Viktor Nemes of Serbia in Greco-Roman 77kg 1/16 round.
Manish had a superb showing in his opening bout and he also fought back from 0-3 down to beat Finland’s Lauri Johannes Maehoenen 11-3 in the 60kg 1/16 round. He attacked the Finn wrestler after going down and managed to turn the tables.
However, in the 1/8 round he was blanked 10-0 by Moldova’s Victor Ciobanu as the world No 3 wrestler proved to be too strong for him.
On both Saturday and Sunday, Indian Greco-Roman grapplers had failed to progress beyond the initial rounds.
The freestyle competition, where India will have more chances, begins from Tuesday.