Asian Games: Mansi loses bronze medal bout, Nitesh settles for silver (ld)

Nagoya, Oct 1 (IANS) India’s Mansi Ahlawat lost her bronze medal bout to Mongolia’s Altjin Togtokh in the women’s 62kg event 2-5 at the Nagoya City Inae Sports Center here on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Indian grappler Nitesh Siwach settled for a silver medal after losing the Greco-Roman 97kg final to Japan’s Yuri Nakazato 0-4. He had become the first Indian to reach the final of the Greco-Roman event at the continental event since the 1962 Asiad. However, he could not win a gold.

Mansi had another tough outing in the bronze medal game. The Mongolian dominated the bout right from the start when she earned two points for pushing her out of bounds on the mat to take a 2-0 lead against the Indian.

Mansi tried pulling a few points back with her attack, but could not convert her efforts into points as Altjin led 2-0 at the end of the first three-minute round.

With a 2-0 lead, the Mongolian grappler took a defensive approach but gave a passivity point to Mansi, who drove Altjin out to level things 2-2.

However, in the final few seconds, Altjin earned two more points to take the bout 4-2. India made a challenge for the points and failed to succeed, as the Mongolian was handed another point for a 5-2 win for her.

Mansi started her campaign with a 6-1 win over Irina Kuznetsova in the pre-quarters. She then beat Jo Su-been of South Korea in the quarters 5-0 to make her way to the semis.

However, she ran against Nonoka Ozaki, the Paris Olympics bronze medallist and the Hangzhou Asiad winner, in the semifinal and went down to her 0-6 and played the bronze bout.

Nitesh, the 2026 Asian Championships silver medallist, was superb in the semifinal against the Hangzhou 2023 bronze medallist Ganbaatar, as he didn’t let his opponent take any point and raced to a 9-0 TSU win. He had earlier defeated Amanberdi Agamammedov of Turkmenistan in the quarterfinal by 7-1.

Earlier, Sumit had lost his Greco-Roman 60kg quarterfinal to Sajjad Abbaspourragani of Iran. The match was a closely contested one and was 1-1, but Sumit lost on VPO1.

Aman also lost his quarterfinal to Shahin Badaghimofrad of Qatar in men’s Greco-Roman 77kg, 0-9. He had earlier won his pre-quarters against Borgil Tuvshinbaatar of Mongolia 8-6. Neither of the Indian grapplers will get a chance for a bronze fight via repechage, as the opponents to whom they lost did not make it to the final as well.

India has already won a Greco-Roman wrestling medal in Aichi-Nagoya through Sunil Kumar, who bagged bronze in the men’s 87kg event on Wednesday.

–IANS

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