Tags:
Journalism of Courage
K D Jadhav must be turning in his grave. The late Kohlapur wrestler was India’s first individual medal winner in the Olympic Games when he picked up a bronze at Helsinki in 1952. And today, the Indian matmen found it difficult to even qualify.
On the eve of their departure to Athens, the wrestlers got a massive publicity — for all wrong reasons. Some of them wanted their personal coaches to accompany them to the Olympic Games, threatening to sit on a dharna if their demands were not met. But the performances of these wrestlers at the Ano Liossia Hall today were not as aggressive as they lost in the preliminary pool rounds, with Palwinder Singh Cheema recording the quickest defeat.
Ramesh Kumar registered one victory in his second bout against Zhirayr Hovehannisyan of Armenia in the 66kg category for a 3-1 verdict but still went out of competition like the other Indians on view today. In his first bout, Ramesh lost to the much-fancied opponent Apostolos Taskoudis of Greece 1-3 to finish 10 among 21 wrestlers.
Yogeswar Dutt first went down in the 55-kg division to his much stronger Japanese rival Chikara Tanabe 3-1 before bowing out to defending champion Namig Abdullayev of Azerbaijan 2-6 in pool D. Earlier in the day, Chikara had stunned reigning Olympic champion Namig Abdullayev of Azairbaijan 3-1 on points to send him out of the competition.
In the heavyweight category, Palwinder Singh Cheema proved no match to Artur Taymazov of Uzbekistan.
