Bronze only for wrestlers

Press, 14 August 1978, Page 18

Bronze only for wrestlers

NZPA Staff correspondent Edmonton The New Zealand wrestler, Murray Avery, was overwhelmed on Saturday in the battle for the silver medal in the heavy-weight class at the Games.

Avery was beaten, 19-3, on points by Satpal Singh, of India, and had to be content with the bronze medal. The New Zealander was completelv outclassed by Singh, the 1974 Commonwealth Games silver medallist.

Singh led, 6-0, at the end of the first round, 12-1, at the end of the second and the New Zealander managed to score only two wrestling points. The other he got from a caution to the Indian.

Avery was the only one of the seven-man New Zealand squad to win a medal. The squad lost a total of 13 matches and won only three. The Canadian Wyatt Wishart won the gold medal in the five-man heavyweight division (100 kg when he defeated Singh on a disqualification. On Friday

Avery was also beaten by the Canadian by a narrow points score. The six other New Zealanders were eliminated in the rounds leading up to the final and most of them were obviously outclassed. Apart from Avery, Barry Oldridge (Auckland), in the 57kg class, was the only New Zealander “alive” at the sart of the Saturday morning session, but he was eliminated, 23-6, on points by Barry Michael, of Canada, in a lop-sided encounter.

That appeared the end of Oldridge, like the New Zealanders before him, but he was called back to the mat for a wrestle-off for the bronze medal against Amrak-Gill Sing, of England. Sing had also been eliminated, but had the same number of black marks against him as the New Zealander.

In their match for the bronze, the Englishman was ahead on points in the second round when he pinned the New Zealander for victory.