In the opening round of the men’s freestyle 74kg category, Sushil Kumar lost 9-11 to Azerbaijan’s Khadzhimurad Gadzhiyev in the World Wrestling Championships.
Jakarta: India’s Sushil Kumar after losing the qualification round in the men’s freestyle wrestling (74kg) at the Asian Games 2018, in Jakarta on Sunday, August 19, 2018. (PTI Photo/Shahbaz Khan) (PTI8_19_2018_000156B)
World Wrestling Championships 2019
Sushil Kumar was marking his return to the World Championship after eight years on Friday at Nur-Sultan, Kazhakstan.
At the beginning of the bout Sushil Kumar using all his experience raced to a 9-4 lead but at the end he lost seven points in a row to lose the 74kg qualification bout.
Gadzhiyev on the other hand made a fine comeback and managed to push Sushil off the mat to take a 10-8 lead and then finally won a bonus point to victory 11-9.
After taking 0-2 lead Sunil further united it with additional four-point throw, which came from a difficult position. The Uzbek camp also challenged the throw but then lost the call, giving one extra point to Sushil for a 9-4 lead at the break.
Sushil Kumar Loses Opening Round Bout
On the other hand, the second period turned the whole game upside down and you can say that it was totally belonged to Azerbaijan, who first pushed Sushil out and the scored of a takedown along with this he also took the lead with a gut wrench from a ground position.
At that point, the time was running out but Sushil on the other hand appeared too tired himself out as Gadzhiyev scored two more points with a two-point push out throw to settle the bout.
Right now, the two-time Olympic medallist is now going to have to wait to know his fate. The situation from now on is that if Gadzhiyev reaches to the final, Sushil, will get a chance to fight for Olympic qualification along with fighting for a bronze.
Talking about Sushil, he is the only Indian to have won a World title when he succeeded in the year 2010 in Moscow. On the other hand, Karan also lost his Qualification round bout 0-7, in the non-Olympic 70kg to Uzbekistan’s Ikhtiyor Navruzov.
Coming to Parveen, he was the only Indian to advance to the second round on the seventh day as he defeated Korea’s Sue Changjae 12-1 in order to enter the second round of the 92kg category.
On the other hand, Parveen missed out on a spot in the quarterfinals as he lost 0-8 to Ukraine’s 14th seed Liubomyr Sagaliuk in the following round.
Apart from Sushil, commonwealth Games gold medallist Sumit Malik also had a disappointing start in the 125kg men’s freestyle category. In the opening round, he lost 2-0 to Hungary’s Daniel Ligeti.
