Bajrang Punia did not wear a protective knee cap, did not take any unnecessary chances, did not try to be spectacular. He just kept his cool and wrestled by the book to bring home a bronze medal from the Tokyo Olympics on Saturday.
At the Makuhari Messe Hall in Chiba, on the last day of wrestling competitions, his coach Emzarios Bentinidis quietly kissed a talisman as his ward was declared the winner of the 65kg bronze-medal match against Daulet Niyazbekov of Kazakhstan. The score — 8-0 in favour of the Indian making his Olympic debut.
It was “victory by points” for him, with his opponent unable to score a single point.
Bajrang was not really overjoyed with the medal though. After all, he was one of India’s best gold medal prospects before the Tokyo campaign started. As India return with their best-ever show in the quadrennial spectacle, Bajrang would have wanted a medal of a brighter hue.
“I am not happy. This is not the result I had set out to achieve. Winning an Olympic medal is no mean achievement, but I can’t jump with joy with a bronze,” Bajrang said after the bout.
Referring to the knee injury that he suffered in the run-up to the Games, he said: “I would have played different but for this injury. It indeed was an issue. It did trouble me and played on my mind. But I did not have the option to rest. After the semi-final, I had to give my all and I did that.”
With Bajrang’s medal and Ravi Dahiya’s silver in the 57kg, Indian wrestlers have matched their best performance at the Olympics by earning two podium finishes. At the 2012 London Games, Sushil Kumar had won a silver and Yogeshwar Dutt bronze.
On Saturday, Bajrang started the bout on a cautious note, earning his first point when Niyazbekov failed to defend his 30 seconds warning for passivity. The Indian then earned another point.
In the second half, Bajrang showed his class. He earned three two pointers, with takedowns. For the first two, he gained control over his opponent with a right-leg attack. With a comfortable 6-0 lead, he made another move on the left-leg to which Niyazbekov had no answer. The rather one-sided bout ensured that Bajrang, who will be India’s flag-bearer at the closing ceremony on Sunday, did not have to return empty-handed from Tokyo.
It was surprising to see Niyazbekov so subdued. Perhaps the repechage round match earlier in the day, which he won against Adama Diatta of Senegal 10-0 (victory by technical superiority), had tired him out a little.
Bajrang played all his earlier bouts on Friday. He won two before losing to Haji Aliyev from Azerbaijan.
Bajrang became the sixth Indian to win a medal in wrestling at the Olympics, joining KD Jadhav (1952), Sushil Kumar (2008, 2012), Yogeshwar Dutt (2012), Sakshi Malik (2016) and Ravi Kumar Dahiya (2020).
With inputs from agencies
