Indian wrestler Sushil Kumar suffers first-ever loss in four years; Bajrang Punia enters semi-final at Tbilisi Grand Prix

New Delhi: Celebrated Indian wrestler Sushil Kumar lost his first bout in more than four years while competing at Tbilisi Grand Prix in Georgia even as his compatriot Bajrang Punia progressed to the semi-finals. Sushil lost 4-8 to Polish grappler Andrzej Piotr Sokalski in the 74 kg category. This was not an ideal result for Sushil in the build-up to the Asian Games. The WFI had exempted him from trials held last month. The 35-year-old was handed exemption, given his past result and form as he had won his third CWG gold in Gold Coast. [caption id=“attachment_4263017” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Sushil Kumar. Reuters[/caption] Before Wednesday’s defeat, Sushil had lost a bout way back in May 2014 in Sassari (Italy) when he lost to Luca Lampis of France. Sushil was re-admitted to the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) after a gap of two years last month. In the 65kg freestyle, Bajrang beat Iran’s Yones Aliakbar Emamichoghaei 3-1 to enter the semi-finals. He earlier defeated Ukraine’s Gor Ogannesyan to enter the quarter-finals. Deepak Punia outwitted Georgy Rubaev of Moldova in the round of 1/8 but lost 4-6 to local hope Saba Chikhradze in the 86kg quarter-finals. Meanwhile, in the Cadet World Championships at Zagreb, Croatia, Gaurav Baliyan assured himself of a silver medal in the 71kg category after setting up the summit clash with Bagrati Gagnidze of Georgia Aman (51kg) defeated Adem Burak of Turkey to won bronze medal. He had earlier beaten Ibrat Khabibullaev of Uzbekistan 8-6 in the repechage. Ravinder (60kg) defeated Albania’s Emanuel Cekrezi 10-0 in the repechage to set up a clash with Sabir Jafarov of Azerbaijan for the bronze medal. Among other Indians, Sukhdev (45kg) lost 4-6 to Shakhbos Komilov of Uzbekistan, Vipul Suresh Thorat (48kg) suffered a 0-10 thrashing from Mahdi Mehrdad Veisi of Iran, Vishal Sahani (55kg) went down 4-6 to Norik Harutyunyan of Armenia.