Rana, Sharma miss medals in Asian wrestling

The Indian grapplers returned empty-handed after the opening day's proceedings in the Senior Asian Wrestling Championship came to an end as

Sunil Kumar Rana and Gaurav Sharma lost their respective bronze medal bouts in the Greco-Roman category.

Rana (66kg) went down to Kazakhstan's Yerbol Konyratov 0-1, 1-0, 0-1 in a close repechage encounter at the K D Jadhav Wrestling Stadium.

Rana lost the opening period 0-1 after the Kazakh was handed a point on the second foul committed by him.

A visibly upset Rana came back strongly to dominate the second period. He, too, was awarded a point for fouls committed by the Kazakh wrestler.

In the decider, the two wrestlers were locked in an engaging battle before the match went into the tie-breaker after the completion of 1:30 minutes.

The local favourite won the toss and was given an advantage. He, however, failed to capitalise and conceded a point to end India's medal hope on the first day of the championships.

The Greco-Roman style is different from the traditional and popular Indian style, which requires the use of only arms and upper bodies to attack.

"We came very close to winning a medal in this match. Had the Kazakh won the toss, we would have been at an advantage as both wrestlers were tired," said India's coach Hargobind Singh.

Rana, who got a bye in the first round, had defeated China's Gaoquan Zhang 2-0, 1-1 to reach the semi-final.

In the semi-final, he was handed 0-7, 0-4 pounding by Ji-Hun Kim of Korea who then went on to clinch the gold in the 66kg category by beating Iran's M Zeidvand 1-0, 1-0 in the finals.

Another bronze medal contender, Sharma, (55kg) was no match for DPR Korea's Won Chul Yun, who defeated the local lad 0-6, 0-7 in a one-sided contest that lasted around two minutes.

Both periods were won by the North Korean due to technical fall, a victory achieved by outscoring the opponent by six points.

Sharma, wearing a red singlet, was surprised by an aggressive throw down from Yun who matted him in the initial few seconds to collect three points.

Yun then went on to decimate his opponent to wrap up the first period within the first minute.

Yun was far too superior for the Indian grappler as he whipped him in the next period as well to finish on the podium.

Earlier, Sharma had lost his quarter-final bout to Korea's Gyu-Jin Choi 2-4, 0-2. As the Korean went on to enter the final, Sharma went into the bronze medal match thorough repechage rounds.

The gold in the 55-kg Greco-Roman style was won by Korea's Gyu-Jin Choi after he beat Shota Tanokura of Japan.

Ravinder Singh (60kg) lost to Korea's Douk Gil 0-3, 1-0, 0-1 to bow of the championship. Naveen, too, lost his opening bout, to Iran's Bashir Babajanzadeh in the 120-kg Greco-Roman category.