India was assured of another medal after Ravi Kumar Dahiya beat Nurislam Sanayev of Kazakhstan in Men’s freestyle 57kg wrestling on Wednesday. Dahiya won the match by fall and won the match despite earlier trailing his Kazakh opponent.
The 23-year Indian wrestler had won both his previous bouts on technical superiority en route to the final. Dahiya is the fourth Indian wrestler to win a medal at the Olympics. KD Jadhav had won a bronze at the 1952 Helsinki Games. Sushil Kumar, now in jail for murder charges, won bronze and silver medals at the Beijing Games and London Olympics respectively. Yogeshwar Dutt had won a bronze medal at the London Olympics.
This now means that India would at least win a silver medal even though Indian fans would expect the wrestler to go for the Gold.
India have already won one silver and two bronze medals so far at Tokyo Olympics. These medals have come from weightlifting, women’s boxing and badminton.
In another match, Indian wrestler Deepak Punia lost to American David Morris Taylor in the 86kg category. He would now fight for a bronze medal.