Olympics 2024: Ultra-defensive Reetika Hooda pays the price, loses QFs bout in women's 76 kg freestyle category

Reetika will now wait for Kyzy to enter the final which will give her a shot at competing in the repechage round.

Paris: Before Reetika Hooda boarded the flight to Paris, there were only silent whispers about her. The buzz was mostly on the seeded duo of Aman Sehrawat and Antim Panghal and the seasoned Vinesh Phogat. On Saturday, she created quite a flutter with an astute performance but fell short of her aspiration of winning an Olympic medal.

Up against top seed Aiperi Medet Kyzy in the women’s freestyle 76kg final, the 21-year-old produced a top-class defensive display against her Kyrgyzstan opponent but the lack of attacking verve ended up becoming her undoing at the Champ-de-Mars arena. The hard-fought bout finished 1-1 but Aiperi was adjudged the winner having logged home the last equalising point as per rules.

Reetika’s hopes of winning a medal then depended on Aiperi defeating American Alexis Kennedy in the semifinal later in the day as that would have allowed her to enter the repechage rounds and a shot at bronze. But it was not to be as Alexis scored an 8-6 win to set up a final against Japan’s Yuka Kagami.

This brought to an end wrestlers’ controversy-ridden campaign in Paris with Aman Sehrawat’s bronze medal being the lone bright spark.

Reetika, who unlike other wrestlers moved to a higher weight category of 76kg instead of cutting down to 65kg as Olympics does not feature her regular class of 72kg, opted for defence against a decorated opponent. She barely let her guard down, keeping her defence tight to hardly allow the Hangzhou Asian Games champion a chance to launch an attack.

The bout moved at a slow pace with neither able to make a strong move as Aiperi too kept her defence solid, aware a small slip-up may cost her in the cagey battle. It looked like the defence-first ploy could work for Reetika as 21-year-old from Rohtak, Haryana took a slender 1-0 lead at halftime.

Having stroked ahead, Reetika only focussed on safeguarding that lead. Midway through the second round, Aiperi levelled the affair and now the pressure was on Reetika to score a point or end up losing. She looked like she may seize the bout when she almost pushed Aiperi out of bounds but the Kyrgyzstan grappler showed superb ring awareness to bail herself out of trouble.

Then, with the clock running out, Reetika went on the offensive but Aiperi was game for it. She defended stoutly to storm into the semifinal, setting herself nicely for that elusive Olympics medal.

Coach Virender Singh Dahiya blamed Reetika’s ultra defensive approach for the defeat. “You can’t win matches purely on defence. I don’t blame Reetika because that was an instruction given to her by her personal coach and others around her. Since Aiperi is top seed, they felt she would be too strong and Reetika should focus on defence. The young girl, with so many suggestions coming, ended up focussing on defence. She’s actually strong in attack and if she had unleashed that, she could have upset Aiperi and a medal would have been confirmed. It’s sad but what to do.”

Reetika played handball and kabaddi as a kid but her father coaxed her into pursuing wrestling as team sports as he felt individual sports would bring her more attention than team sports. Reetika listened to her father’s advice and after being inspired by Sakshi Malik’s bronze medal-winning effort at 2016 Rio Olympics, she joined the very same Chhotu Ram Stadium in Rohtak where her icon trained.

From there she has been progressing brilliantly, winning the gold in the World U-23 Championships at Tirana, becoming the first from the country to do so. She even won a bronze at the Asian Championships in Astana last year before becoming the first woman to qualify to the Olympics in the 76kg category from India.