Aman outclassed in semis, to fight for bronze

Rohit Mahajan

Tribune News Service

Paris, August 8

For Aman Sehrawat, India’s only male wrestler fighting at the Paris Olympics, Japan’s Rei Higuchi proved to be one champion too many — the young Indian, 21, was crushed by the 28-year-old Higuchi in the semifinals of the 57kg class here this evening.

Sehrawat, himself a junior world champion, was completely outclassed by Higuchi, the 2022 World Championships gold medallist, 10-0, in the very first period.

The defeat ended Sehrawat’s dream of emulating his idol, Ravi Dahiya, who had won silver at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago.

Sehrawat’s road in Paris was dotted with champions — in the first round, he faced Macedonia’s Vladimir Egorov, winner at the European Championships two years ago. Sehrawat proceeded to give Egorov, eight years his senior, a schooling — the Indian first earned a point over Egorov’s passivity as the Macedonian failed to even begin an attack. Sehrawat then went for his opponent’s left leg, earning two points that put him 3-0 up; he then executed another takedown, then earned another point for step-out, and led 6-0 at the break.

In the second period, Sehrawat dished out more of the same as the Macedonian seemed to be in some sort of discomfort — two more takedowns and the Indian had taken the first successful step towards matching his idol.

Next up was Albania’s Zelimkhan Abakarov — a former world champion — and the young Indian demolished him as well by technical superiority to enter the semifinals. The victory was sweet, for Abakarov had beaten him at the World Championships last year — using the technique called fetley in Hindi, leg-lace in English, Abakarov had rolled Sehrawat five times. The defeat was embarrassing, and Sehrawat avenged it in just 124 seconds today — using the same fetley technique to roll Abakarov across the mat. The Indian star executed the debilitating move early in the second period, trapped his legs, rolled him again and again. Each roll earned him two points, and eight consecutive points gave him a handsome 12-0 victory.

In the semifinals later in the evening, Higuchi did to Sehrawat exactly what Sehrawat had done to his first two opponents — in no time at all, he was 4-0 up after going for the Indian’s legs and executing takedowns.

Sehrawat was urged to fight on by the flag-waving, shouting Indians in the crowd, but the Japanese star was an unstoppable force today. He exposed Sehrawat’s weak defence of his legs and threw him down several times in succession to earn six more points — a lead of 10-0 ended the bout on technical superiority, and thus ended the Haryana lad’s day.

Sehrawat would take on Puerto Rico’s Darian Toi Cruz for the bronze tomorrow.