Tokyo Olympics wrestling: India’s Seema Bisla goes down in opening round
The Indian wrestler lost 3-1 to Tunisia’s Sarra Hamdi in the round of 16 of the 50kg women’s wrestling category.
India’s Seema Bisla bowed out of the Tokyo Olympics following her 3-1 opening-round loss to Sarra Hamdi of Tunisia in the women’s 50kg weight class at the Makuhari Messe on Friday.
Hamdi later lost her quarter-final bout to the world champion Mariya Stadnik of Azerbaijan and ended Seema Bisla’s hopes of re-entry into the competition via repechage.
The repechage rule in wrestling allows grapplers who have lost early in the competition a second chance, should their victor make it to the final.
In what was a cagey affair, neither wrestler managed a clear takedown as Sarra Hamdi benefitted from the two passivity calls against the Indian in both periods of the bout.
The 28-year-old Seema Bisla had shown great promise building up to the Summer Games. The Indian wrestler won a bronze medal at the Asian championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan and sealed her place for Tokyo 2020 with a win at the world Olympic qualifiers in Sofia, Bulgaria.
India, so far, has won a silver medal in Olympic wrestling at the Tokyo Olympics with Ravi Kumar Dahiya impressing in the freestyle 57kg weight division.