Athens: What hockey tried to cover up with a decent last match, the matmen of India exposed. It’s the soft and rotting underbelly that explains the extremes to which Indian bureaucratic corruption goes.

Four bungling, huge men in Olympic langotis fell as quickly as it all started in their first bouts of freestyle wrestling. They have yet a chance each, but one waits to see how the ‘ghee-badaam’ brigade’s digestive system is being helped by the Mediterranean weather.

For the Olympic record, 84kg Anuj Kumar lost 6-14 to Japan’s Hidekazu Yokoyama (six minutes), 55kg Yogeshwar Dutt lost to Chikara Tanabe of Japan 4-7 (six minutes), 66kg Ramesh Kumar lost to Greece’s Apostolos Taskoudis 9-13 (six monutes), and the bigger-they-are-harder-they-fall-Palwinder Singh Cheema (120kg) was wound up 0-14 in a minute and 13 seconds by Uxbek heavyweight Artur Taymazov.

At the time of going to press, Anuj had gone and covered himself with further ‘glory’, losing his second bout as well, 2-8 to Majid Khodai of Iran.