Tokyo | Jagran Sports Desk: Wrestler Bajrang Punia fought for Bronze medal on Saturday and came out victorious 8-0 in Men’s freestyle 65kg category at Tokyo Olympics, scripting history for the game so dear to the rural sports obsession in India. Bajrang Punia defeated Kazakhstan's Daulet Niyazbekov 8-0.
With Punia’s Bronze medal win, Indian contingent now had put six medals in its kitty as much as it had in London Olympics 2012, India’s best ever performance in quadrennial games. Following Neeraj Chopra's Golden finish in Javelin Throw, with seven medals in Tokyo Olympics, this is India's best-ever Olympic performance.
This is for the second time that Wrestling has given India two medals in a single Olympics edition. Even in London Olympics 2012 in which India had won six medals – as much as it has in Tokyo 2020 till now – the wrestling had given India two medals; Bronze (Yogeshwar Dutt) and Silver (Sushil Kumar) medals respectively. In Tokyo Olympics too, wrestling became the top podium positioner for Indian contingent with two medals of same metals as they were in London, a Silver (Ravi Kumar Dahiya) and a Bronze (Bajrang Punia) medal respectively.
After a stunning start in Tokyo 2020, with two back to back winning bouts in which Punia displayed unforgivable domination on the mat, the only Indian wrestler win three medals at the World Wrestling Championships lost to Haji Aliyev of Azerbaijan 5-12 in semi finals. Following this, Punia fought for Bronze medal on Saturday in which he ended up making a cut for the podium by defeating Kazakhstan’s Daulet Niyazbekov.
With Punia's win and Neeraj Chopra's Golden finish, India won the best-ever seven medals in Tokyo Olympics, starting from weightlifter Mirabai Chanu (Silver), boxer Lovlina Borgohain (Bronze), shuttler PV Sindhu (Bronze), wrestler Ravi Kumar Dahiya (Silver) and Men's field Hockey team (Bronze).