Judoka Thoudam Kalpana Devi missed out on a bronze after losing her repechage bout against Kazakhstan’s Lenariya Mingazova in the 52 kg category as it was a disappointing day for the Indian team on the mat at the 18th Asian Games in Incheon on Saturday.
After a high at the Commonwealth Games, the Indian judokas were brought back to earth by some of the much superior Asian opponents.
Save Kalpana, who reached the bronze medal (repechage) bout, the two other Indians Navdeep Chana (men’s 60 kg) and Likmabam Sushila Devi (women’s 48 kg) were eliminated in the earlier rounds.
Kalpana won her pre-quarterfinal match against Devika Khadka of Nepal before losing out to Ma Yingnan of China, who eventually reached the finals.
Getting a chance for repechage bout, Kalpana got past Ju Pie Lien of Chinese Taipei to set up a bronze medal bout with the Kazakh judoka. However her opponent proved to be strong as she got an ‘Ippon’ on her way to bronze medal.
Among the others, Chana, a silver medallist at the recently concluded Glasgow Asian Games, lost his 60 kg pre-quarterfinal bout against Boldbaatar Ganbat of Mongolia after having beaten Abdulla Almaraghy of Kuwait in the first round.
L Sushila Devi beat Uzbekistan’s Mukkadas Kubeeva in the pre quarterfinal before losing to Asian champion and world no 5 Emi Yamagishi of Japan as the champion judoka got an ’Ippon’
With Yamagishi reaching the final, Sushila got a chance in the first round repechage Wu Shugen of China.
The only Indian judoka left in the fray is Rajwinder Kaur in the 75 kg category.
