Tokyo Olympics: Bajrang Punia wins bronze medal in men’s 65kg wrestling

  • Bajrang Punia defeated Kazakhstan’s Daulet Niyazbekov to take bronze in the men’s freestyle 65kg category, bringing the seventh wrestling medal for India at the Olympics. Former Asian Games gold medallist Bajrang dominated the bout from start to finish, which ended in a 8-0 scoreline in favour of the Indian 27-year-old. Bajrang won by technical superiority.
  • KD Jadhav was the first Indian wrestler to win an Olympic medal at the 1952 Helsinki Games which was then followed by a bronze and silver by Sushil Kumar in the 2008 and 2012 Games in Beijing and Rio, respectively, to become the first Indian athlete to win 2 individual Olympic medals.
  • Punia became the sixth Indian wrestler to finish on the Olympic podium after KD Jadhav, Sushil Kumar, Yogeshwar Dutt, Sakshi Malik and Ravi Kumar Dahiya. This became the second instance after the 2012 London Olympics when two Indian wrestlers won medals in the same Games. Ravi Dahiya had earlier won silver in the men’s 57 kg category in this Olympic.
  • Bajrang is a three-time world championships medallist. He won a bronze in the 2019 World Championships and had won silver in 2018, both in the 65kg category. He won a bronze at the world championships in 2013 in the 60 kg category.
  • He is also the reigning Commonwealth and Asian games champion of the 65kg category, having won the gold medal in 2018 in both the Games. He had won a silver medal in the 61kg category in the CWG and Asiad in 2014 respectively.

Awards

  • Arjuna Award, 2015
  • Padma Shri Award, 2019
  • Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna award, 2019
  • FICCI India Sports Award 2020
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