malaysiang
Greco-Roman wrestler Lee Seung-chan missed out on an opportunity to salvage a bronze medal in his Olympic debut, following a loss in his repechage match in Paris on Tuesday.
Lee lost to Amin Mirzazadeh of Iran 9-0 in one of two repechage contests in the men’s 130-kilogram Greco-Roman event of the Paris Olympics at Champ-de-Mars Arena in the French capital.
Mirzazadeh, the 2023 world champion, earned a victory by technical fall after going up by more than eight points before the end of the second period.
Lee had dropped to the repechage phase after Mijain Lopez of Cuba, who defeated the South Korean in the round of 16 on Monday, advanced to the final. Mirzazadeh lost to Lopez in the quarterfinals.
Mirzazadeh will now face Sabah Shariati of Azerbaijan, who lost to Lopez in the semifinals, in one of two bronze medal matches later Tuesday.
Lee was competing in his first Olympic Games at age 28. He was one of two South Korean male wrestlers in Paris, along with Kim Seung-jun in the men’s 97kg Greco-Roman eve
nt.
Later Tuesday, Kim lost to Artur Aleksanyan of Armenia, the reigning silver medalist, by 9-0 in the round of 16. Kim ended up in the repechage round for Wednesday after Aleksanyan, who won gold in 2016 and bronze in 2012 in this event, reached the final. Kim will face Rustam Assakalov of Uzbekistan, who lost in the quarterfinals to Aleksanyan, in the repechage match. The winner of that contest will go on to face Gabriel Rosillo of Cuba, the semifinal loser against Aleksanyan.
South Korea did not win a medal in wrestling at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, the first time the country had been shut out in the sport since 1972.
Source: Yonhap News Agency
