SILVER FOR RAVI DAHIYA ON A DAY OF MISSES FOR INDIAN WRESTLERS
CHIBA: Ravi Dahiya on Thursday became only the second Indian wrestler to win a silver medal at the Olympic Games after he lost the men’s freestyle 57kg title clash 4-7 to reigning world champion Zavur Uguev, but Vinesh Phogat’s redemption dream came crashing down after a shock quarterfinal exit and Deepak Punia let slip a bronze in the last 10 seconds of his play-off bout.
There were expectations that the 23-year Dahiya would become India’s youngest Olympic champion but the Russian defended well to win comfortably. Dahiya had lost to Uguev at the 2019 World Championship also.
CHIBA: Ravi Dahiya on Thursday became only the second Indian wrestler to win a silver medal at the Olympic Games after he lost the men’s freestyle 57kg title clash 4-7 to reigning world champion Zavur Uguev here.
There were expectations that the 23-year Dahiya would become India’s youngest Olympic champion but the Russian defended well to win comfortably.
Dahiya had lost to Uguev at the 2019 World Championship also.
The wrestler from Nahri village in Haryana had outclassed Colombia’s Tigreros Urbano (13-2) in his opener and then outwitted Bulgaria’s Georgi Valentinov Vangelov (14-4) in the quarterfinals.
In the semifinals, he erased a massive 2-9 deficit to pin Nurislam Sanayev.
Sushil Kumar, who is now in jail on charges of a murder, is the only other Indian wrestler to have made the final at Olympics. He had won a silver at the 2012 London Games, where Yogeshwar Dutt also won a bronze. Sushil had won a bronze at the 2008 Beijing Games.
India now have five Olympic medal winning wrestlers.
KD Jadhav had won a bronze in the 1952 Helsinki Games. Sakshi Malik had become the first woman wrestler to win an Olympic medal when she clinched a bronze at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
Deepak Punia misses bronze by a whisker
Chiba (Japan), Aug 5 (PTI) Wrestler Deepak Punia came agonisingly close to winning a bronze medal on his Olympic debut but conceded a take-down in last 10 seconds of the 86kg play-off against San Marino’s Myles Nazem Amine to miss out on achieving the feat, here on Thursday. Deepak’s defence was superb throughout the bout but the San Marino wrestler grabbed the decisive two-pointer after getting hold of the Indian’s right leg and converted it into a takedown in dying moments of the bout. The 22-year-old Indian, son of a milk peddler in a Haryana village, was leading 2-1 before that take-down but it was not meant to be his day.
Deepak made good use of a favourable draw to reach the semifinals but lost to the formidable American David Morris Taylor in the semifinals. He earVinesh’s lier got past Nigeria’s Ekerekeme Agiomor, the African championship bronze medallist by technical superiority and then prevailed 6-3 over China’s Zushen Lin in the quarterfinal.
Vinesh makes shock exit from Tokyo Games, Anshu too loses repechage bout
(Eds: Updates to say that Vinesh Phogat exits from Olympics) Chiba (Japan), Aug 5 (PTI) Star Indian wrestler Vinesh Phogat on Thursday made a second consecutive heart-breaking quarterfinal exit from the Olympic Games after suffering a massive upset defeat at the hands of Belarus’ Vanesa Kaladzinskaya, here. Vinesh had no answer to the supreme defence of Vanesa, who got her revenge from the Indian at the biggest stage after suffering a similar embarrassing defeat ‘by fall’ earlier this year in Ukraine.
Later, Vanesa lost her semi-final to China’s Qinyu Pang on criteria after scores were tied 2-2, a result that brought curtains on campaign at the Tokyo Games. The top-seeded Vinesh, who was a hot favourite for a medal, needed Vanesa to beat the Chinese to rejoin the 53kg competition through the repechage round and push for a bronze.
At the 2016 Rio Games, Vinesh had suffered a quarterfinal defeat against China’s Sun Yanan after enduring a leg injury and was stretchered out of the mat.
This is a defeat that will rankle the 2018 Asian Games gold medallist Vinesh for a long time.
Vanesa, the reigning European champion, executed her strategy perfectly as Vinesh could not find a way to wriggle out of Vanesa’s headlocks.
That crippled and rattled the top seed Vinesh, who is one of the strongest wrestlers in her category.
Even when Vinesh got behind Vanesa, she could not push her down on the knees from a favourable position with the Belarusian showing immense strength to keep her legs straight. Vinesh used all her might but Vanesa’s defence would not crumble. Even the famous double-leg attack that Vinesh has used to get herself into position to pin her rivals, did not result in points.