Ravi Dahiya became only the second Indian after Sushil Kumar to clinch a silver medal in wrestling at the Olympics. Dahiya was beaten 7-4 by the Russian Olympic Committee’s (ROC) Zaur Uguev 7-4 in the final bout of the Men’s freestyle 57kg category to settle with a second-place finish on the podium.
Dahiya impressed with his stellar show in what was his debut Olympics campaign in Tokyo. His tenacity coupled with his relentless approach saw him overcome challenges from Colombia’s Oscar Tigreros and Bulgarian Georgi Vangelov before his famous comeback win against Nurislam Sanayev from Kazakhstan in the semi-final.
Despite being 9-2 down at one point in the semi-final, Dahiya stunned the Kazakh in the dying minutes of the game as he won the contest by ‘fall’ to move to the final. He was up against two-time world champion Uguev in the summit clash and went down despite a spirited effort.
As Dahiya took on Uguev in the final in a bid to clinch the elusive gold medal, his mentor Sushil Kumar cheered from him inside the Tihar Jail. As per a report in India Today, Sushil watched the final bout with other prisoners and got emotional as he witnessed Dahiya equal his feat from the 2012 London Olympics.
Sushil was the first Indian to win a wrestling silver at the Olympics when he fought his way to a second-place finish at the London Games. Sushil had become the first Indian athlete two win two Olympic medals as he had earlier returned with a bronze from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He still remains the only Indian male athlete with two individual Olympic medals.
However, unlike his idol Sushil, Dahiya managed to return home with a medal from his debut Olympics campaign in Tokyo. Dahiya considers Sushil his mentor and has trained with him at the Chhatrasal Stadium in Delhi. In fact it was Sushil’s heroics in the 2008 Olympics which had inspired a young Dahiya to take up wrestling as a profession.
He has since come a long way and the 23-year-old has already established his credentials as one of the best wrestlers in the country at present. He has age by his side and will look to better his idol’s record in the upcoming Olympics in the future.
