Sushil Kumar’s bronze medal winning effort did not have much of an effect on fellow wrestler Rajiv Tomar, who crashed out of the 120kg freestyle event of the Beijing Olympics with a comprehensive defeat here Thursday.

The Indian grappler fought a slipshod qualifying round bout against Steve Mocco and the American hardly broke a sweat as he blanked Rajiv 4-0 to show him the exit door. And if there was any hope of a Sushil-like turnaround, it went up in smoke with Mocco failing to reach the final. The American lost his semi-final bout against Russian Bakhtiyar Akhmedov 1-3. Had Mocco reached the final, Rajiv would have played in the repechage and could have been in the hunt for a bronze medal.

On Wednesday, Sushil too had lost his opening round bout against Andriy Stadnik but with the Ukrainian going on to reach the final — where he lost the bout to settle for the silver — the Indian was handed an opportunity to compete in repechage rounds.

Much to everyone's surprise, Sushil went on to win all his repechage round bouts to fetch India’s second individual medal in the Beijing Olympics, following Abhinav Bindra's shooting gold.