Bajrang Punia beat Kazakhstan's Daulet Niyazbekov to win the bronze medal
- EP News Service
- Aug 07, 2021
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Bajrang Punia bags the Olympic bronze medal in 65kg freestyle wrestling
NEW DELHI: Earning India's it's the sixth medal at the ongoing Tokyo Olympics, 27-year-old wrestler Bajrang Punia beat Kazakhstan's Daulet Niyazbekov 8-0 to win the bronze medal in the men's 65kg freestyle category, despite an injured knee.
Right from the start in the first round Punia kept up the attack and after about one minute and no wrestlers getting a decision grip, Punia hardened his attack and got two points, and in the last three minutes, with a takedown, he took a 4-0 lead.
After this, there was no looking back, with two more takedowns the Kazakhstan wrestler stood no chance and by end of the 1st round he was leading by 6-0.
As then went to the second round it was all over for the Kazak as Punia grabbed his right leg in a grip that Niyazbekov could not get out and soon the clock ran out and he went down with 0 against Punia's score of 8 points.
Bajrang who is married to Sangita Phogat the fourth daughter of Indian amateur wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat hails from Jhajjar in Haryana and began his initial training from his wrestler father, latter the family shifted to Delhi and Punia trained under Olympic medallist Yogeshwar Dutt.
With today's win, Punia becomes one of the sixth Indian wrestler to win in the Olympics after KD Jadhav, Sushil Kumar, Yogeshwar Dutt, Sakshi Malik and most recently Ravi Kumar Dahiya who won silver in the men's 57 kg category.
With Ravi Dhaiya already winning silver India now have two medals in the game, the second instance after the 2012 London Olympics when two Indian wrestlers won medals in the same Games.
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