Nagoya: India’s Greco-Roman wrestler Sunil Kumar was left to fight for a bronze medal after losing his men’s 87kg semifinals by technical superiority to Japan’s Taizo Yoshida, while Nisha Dahiya was knocked out of the quadrennial Continental event Wednesday.
Sunil, the bronze medal winner at Hangzhou Asian Games in 2023, began with a confident technical superiority win over Tajikistan’s Muhammad Sultonzoda but was no match for the Japanese World Championship bronze medallist.
Against Sultonzoda, the Indian finished the job in a jiffy after his rival was put on a ‘par terre’ position for being defensive. Sunil made full use of the advantageous ground position to employ consecutive gut wrench moves.
In the last-four bout, Yoshida led 6-0 after the first period and added five more points to move to the gold medal match, not giving a single scoring opportunity to Sunil.
The Indian will now fight it out with Philippines’ Roberts Callum Johnston in the bronze play-off, later in the day.
In the women’s 68kg event, Nisha lost to North Korea’s Pak in the 1/8 round and later the repechage round to bow out.
Nisha had moved ahead 2-0 but Pak executed a four-pointer to end the first period with a 4-2 lead.
Incidentally, Nisha had lost to Pak at the Paris Olympics quarterfinals also after suffering an injury. Nisha was leading 8-2 in that bout but left the mat in tears due to an elbow injury as she lost 8-10.
In the second period, Nisha got a two-point lead to level the match. No wrestler could score a point after that and Pak was declared the winner on criteria (scoring a bigger move).
Pak reached the final to open a repechage route for Nisha but the Indian could not utilise the opportunity, losing ‘by fall’ to South Korea’s Park Hyeonyeong.
