India’s Greco Roman wrestler Hardeep Singh lost his opening round bout in the 98 kg category by technical points to Turkey’s Ildem Cenk and crashed out of the competition at the Rio Olympics, here today.
The Turkish wrestler won the bout 2-1 despite a stiff resistance from the 25-year-old Indian. Hardeep’s hopes of making it to the repechage was blown away when Cenk subsequently lost to Artur Aleksanyan of Armenia 0-9 in the semi-final.
Earlier, the opening round was fought well by Hardeep and he, in fact, was given an advantage by the referee due to passive fighting from the Turk.
While Hardeep pinned his rival to the ground, he failed to do the required flip which would have earned him technical points.
To his horror, in the very next round, it was the Turk’s turn to get an advantage and he did the flip effectively to get the required two points.
In the final round, Hardeep did pull a point back but it wasn’t enough and the 20-year-old opponent came up trumps.
