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Rio 2016: Overweight by 500gms, wrestler Gurpreet disqualified from Olympic qualifiers

The latest setback for Indian wrestling couldn't have come at a worse time when two of the country's brightest medal prospects, Geeta Phogat and Babita Phogat, saw their Rio dreams dashed after "forfeiting" their respective bronze-medal match in the Mongolia championship.

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Gurpreet Singh (blue) was found overweight by 500 grams in the 75kg category at the World Qualifying Tournament in Istanbul
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Days after Glasgow Commonwealth Games gold medallist Vinesh Phogat (48kg) was disqualified for being overweight, Indian wrestling received another bad news when Greco-Roman grappler Gurpreet Singh was also disqualified from the Olympic Qualifiers for the Rio Games after being found overweight on Friday.

In the last qualification event for Rio, Punjab's Gurpreet was found overweight by 500 grams during the weigh-ins for the 75kg category at the second World Qualifying Tournament in Istanbul. Before him, Vinesh was found overweight by 400 grams at the first World Qualification event in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

The latest setback for Indian wrestling couldn't have come at a worse time when two of the country's brightest medal prospects, Geeta Phogat and Babita Phogat, saw their Rio dreams dashed after "forfeiting" their respective bronze-medal match in the Mongolia championship.

A miffed Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) has already issued a show-cause notice to Gurpreet for shaming the country in front of the top officials of the United World Wrestling (UWW), the sport's world governing body.

"His unforgiving act has resulted in India losing a possible spot in the Greco-Roman category at the Rio Olympics. Another grappler Harpreet had originally won the selection trials in Delhi for the two qualifiers, but when he failed to clinch a quota place in the previous tournament, we offered Gurpreet a chance to make the cut. Now, we are regretting our decision. All the money spent by the sports ministry and the WFI in training these boxers abroad has been wasted," WFI assistant secretary Vinod Tomar said.

According to former freestyle chief coach Vinod Kumar, the fault lies with both the coaches and the wrestlers.

"It's the job of a coach to keep a check on the weight. He should be aware of how much kilos his ward is shedding or gaining. But then, the coach can't be present everywhere. Ultimately, the wrestler should himself be aware of his weight before leaving for a major tournament like the Olympic qualifiers," Kumar reacted to the news.

"The wrestlers sometimes don't set their weights. They don't tell the coaches what they are eating. In Gurpreet's case, he could have easily avoided the embarrassment by following any of these methods. He should have managed his weight before leaving for the qualifiers. In Istanbul, the weather is same like what you experience during November in Delhi. Many top Indians wrestlers have successfully reduced their weights in the past during peak winter season. Gurpreet wouldn't have found it difficult to shed his kilos. I believe the intention was not there," he added.

The Indian men's freestyle and Greco-Roman teams had been training at Tbilisi, Georgia for almost a month before leaving for Istanbul.

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