Dahiya to grapple for gold

NEW DELHI/TOKYO: What do you do if you are trailing nine points to two, the clock has a little over a minute-and-a-half left on it, and you are fighting the match of your life—a match that will decide if you become only the second Indian wrestler to get a shot at an Olympic gold medal?

You win by the grandest way possible in the sport — a fall.

In what was a constantly shifting, roiling, furious battle, Ravi Dahiya, 23, exploded back from the brink of defeat to pin his opponent, Kazakhstan’s Nurislam Sanayev, in the 57kg category Freestyle wrestling semi-final at the Tokyo Olympics.

It has been a sensational run so far for Dahiya, the reigning Asian champion for the second successive year, who has now won every bout at the Olympics by either technical superiority (where a wrestler opens up a 10-point difference) or, in this case, a fall (where a wrestler holds both of the opponent’s shoulders on the mat simultaneously). Dahiya will face the world champion, Russian Zavur Uguev, in Thursday’s final. The wrestler from Haryana had lost to Uguev in the 2019 World Championship semi-finals, eventually winning a bronze in that tournament. After the nature of Wednesday’s win, anything’s possible. “He was just one attack away from losing,” said Anil Mann, the coach who was by the mat. “We told him to be very patient, to focus and attack because in such situations a trailing wrestler generally gets puzzled, starts looking at the clock and makes mistakes.”