(Rptg with correction in 5th para)

Yogeshwar crashes out of Rio Games with first-round loss Rio de Janeiro, Aug 21 (PTI) Celebrated wrestlerYogeshwar Dutt failed to sign off his Olympic career with amedal, losing in the opening round to Mongolian GanzorigiinaMandakhnaran whose quarterfinal defeat dashed the Indian’shopes of a repechage at the Rio Games here today. Expectations were high from Yogeshwar, a London Olympicsbronze-medallist, and he was touted as a strong medalprospect. But he looked a pale shadow of his previous grittyself in the 0-3 loss to Mandakhnaran in the qualificationround bout. After his loss in the qualification, Yogeshwar’s onlyhope of making the medal round depended on his Mongolianopponent reaching the gold medal bout. However, Mandakhnaran went down 0-6 to Russia’s SoslanLyudvikovich Ramonov, the gold medallist at the 2014 WorldChampionship in Tashkent, in the quarterfinals to end theIndian grappler’s dream of signing off with a medal. The seven-member Indian wrestling team thus finished itscampaign with just a solitary bronze won by Sakshi Malik inthe women’s 58kg category. The squad was originallyeight-strong but Narsingh Yadav was ousted after being slappedwith a doping ban by the Court of Arbitration for Sports. Yogeshwar, competing in his fourth and last Olympics,hardly looked aggressive against the Mongolian, agold-medallist from the 2010 Asian Games besides being atwo-time World Championships bronze-winner. The 33-year-old grappler from Haryana, had bagged abronze in the 60kg category at the London Games and wasexpected to repeat the feat in the 65kg weight division. However, from the very beginning, Yogeshwar failed to getaround Mandakhnaran during his qualification bout as theMongolian moved at a very fast pace. In the opening period, Mandakhnaran earned a point due toYogeshwar’s passivity in 30 seconds to take a 1-0 lead.Mandakhnaran then turned a defensive position into anattacking one and successfully took down Yogeshwar to quicklybag two points and surge ahead. With a minute to go, Yogeshwar tried hard but could notget around his opponent and, as a result, went into the break0-3 down. Yogeshwar, who qualified only in March this year for theRio Games after struggling with a niggling knee injury, wasexpected to turn the tables in the second period but he simplyfailed to script a comeback. In the last minute of the bout, he tried very hard to getthe hold of his rival and pin him down but all his effortswent in vain. The Mongolian wrestler could not earn a pointeither in the second period as he solely focused on defending. But in the end, the three points, which he scored in thefirst half, were enough to it make the pre-quarterfinal round. Mandakhnaran survived one more round before running intothe tough Russian, who dominated the bout to march ahead. PTICM PM SSRPM