Rio Olympics: Wrestler Hardeep Singh Crashes Out After Losing Greco Roman Bout

India's Greco Roman wrestler Hardeep Singh lost his opening round bout in the 98 kg category by technical points to Turkey's Cenk Ildem and crashed out of the competition at the Rio Olympics on Tuesday.

The Turkish wrestler won the bout 2-1 despite a stiff resistance from the 25-year-old Indian.

Hardeep's hopes of making it to the repechage was blown away when Cenk subsequently lost to Artur Aleksanyan of Armenia 0-9 in the semi-final.

Earlier, the opening round was fought well by Hardeep and he, in fact, was given an advantage by the referee due to passive fighting from the Turk.

While Hardeep pinned his rival to the ground, he failed to do the required flip which would have earned him technical points.

To his horror, in the very next round, it was the Turk's turn to get an advantage and he did the flip effectively to get the required two points. In the final round, Hardeep did pull a point back but it wasn't enough and the 20-year-old opponent came up trumps.

"There's no shortfall of cash and rewards once you win a medal but you always struggle and there's hardly anyone to support you in India during the journey process," Hardeep said.

India, who had sent its biggest-ever Olympic contingent number here, are yet to win a medal with five days left and a storm has already started brewing back home.

"It's the story for most of Olympic athletes, we really struggle to come at this level," he said praising Sports Authority of India (SAI) for helping him prepare for the Olympics as India qualified for Greco Roman wrestling for the first time since Athens 2004.