Tokyo Olympics: The Indian coach challenged the decision but there was no way back for Punia as the decision went in favour of Amine and there was no time left to play.
The Indian coach challenged the decision but there was no way back for Punia as the decision went in favour of Amine and there was no time left to play.
Punia, a junior world champion and a silver medallist in the 2019 World Championships, was coming off a one-sided loss in the semi-final to USA’s David Morris Taylor.
Punia scored the first points of the bout as he held the San Marino wrestler from the back to go up 2-0. Amine tried a good move at the two-minute mark in the first period but Deepak defended well but still gave away a single point. Deepak led 2-1 at the break.
The Indian wrestler looked tired in the second period and hardly made any moves to secure points. His strategy to defend almost worked out but Amine tried hard to snatch points and eventually succeeded.
Earlier, Deepak made the most of an easy draw by getting past Nigeria’s Ekerekeme Agiomor, the African championship bronze medallist by technical superiority and then prevailed 6-3 against China’s Zushen Lin in the quarterfinal.