London, Aug 10 (IANS) Indian wrestler Amit Kumar Olympic medal hopes are still alive as he qualified for the Repechage 2 of the 55kg category while his compatriot Narsingh Pancham Yadav crashed out after losing his first round bout in the men’s 74kg event here Friday.
It was Georgian Vladimer Khinchegashvili, who threw a lifeline to Kumar, by qualifying for the final round at the ExCel North Arena 2. Kumar, the youngest Indian wrestler to qualify for Olympics, still has a chance to win a bronze medal.
Kumar, 18, raised hopes with a 3-1 win over Iran’s Hassan Sabzali Rahimi 3-1 in the pre-quarterfinal. The Indian, however, failed to repeat his performance and lost his quarterfinal bout 1-3 to Khinchegashvili. Kumar had received a first round bye.
But the Georgian went on to win the semifinal against Shinichi Yumoto and make the final, that made Kumar eligible for the Repechage 2.
In the Repechage 2, Kumar will face the winner of the bout between Egyptian Ibrahim Farag Abdelhakim Mohamed and Radoslav Marinov Velikov of Bulgaria. If Kumar wins his repechage round, he would take on Yumoto in the bronze medal match.
But Yadav was not so lucky as he suffered a first round loss to Canadian Matthew Judah Gentry. Narsingh went down 1-3 to Gentry.
Gentry lost his quarterfinal bout 1-3 to American Jordan Ernest Burroughs that ended Narsingh’s hopes of making it to the repechage round.
