Sushil Kumar loses first bout in four years at Tbilisi Grand Prix

Indian wrestler Sushil Kumar lost his first wrestling bout in more than four years at Tbilisi Grand Prix in Georgia. Sushil lost 4-8 to Polish grappler Andrzej Piotr Sokalski in the 74 kg category. The 35-year-old was handed exemption given his past result and form as he had won his third CWG gold in Gold Coast.

It’s not an ideal result for Sushil in build up to the Asian Games. The WFI had exempted him from trials, held last month. Before today’s defeat, Sushil had lost way back in May 2014 in Italy to Luca Lampis of France. He was re-admitted to the Target Olympic Podium Scheme after a gap of two years last month.

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Meanwhile, Bajrang Punia and Deepak Punia progressed to the quarter-finals. In the 65kg freestyle, Bajrang defeated Ukraine’s Gor Ogannesyan to set up a quarterfinal clash with Iran’s Yones Aliakbar Emamichoghaei whereas Deepak outplayed Georgy Rubaev of Moldova in and will face local hope Saba Chikhradze in the 86kg quarterfinals.

In the cadet World Championships at Zagreb, Croatia, Gaurav Baliyan confirmed a silver category in the 71 kg after setting up the summit clash with Bagrati Gagnidze of Georgia.

Aman defeated Adam Burak of Turkey to win Bronze medal in the 51 kg category. He had earlier got the better of Ibrat Khabibullaev of Uzbekistan 8-6 in the repechage.

Among other Indians, Ravinder defeated Albania’s Emanuel Cekrezi 10-0 in the 60 kg category to set up a clash against Sabir Jafarov of Azerbaijan for a Bronze medal. Vipul Suresh Thorat suffered a 0-10 thrashing defeat in the 48 kg category against Mahdi Mehrdad Veisi of Iran.