Bajrang Punia Wins Bronze Medal In 65 Kg Freestyle Wrestling In Tokyo Olympics

New Delhi: Bajrang Punia of India defeated Daulet Niyazbekov of Kazakhstan 8-0 in a one-sided contest to win the Bronze medal in the men’s freestyle 65kg weight class event of Wrestling Competition at Tokyo Olympic Games 2020. This is Bajrang’s first Olympic medal, now India has six medals( 2 Silver and 4 Bronze), now Javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra’s event has also started, India can get one more medal. Neeraj has a first throw of 87.03 meters, the second throw of 87.58 meters, in the Final round, He looks like big hope for a medal.

On Saturday, Bajrang was in an attacking mood right from the beginning. He got the first point because his opponent was not trying to get points. Soon Bajrang got one more point and the first period ended with Bajrang leading 2-0. Bajrang attacked his legs in the second period and got two points to take the lead of 4-0. Daulet was playing a safe game, but Bajrang was not interested to give any point with solid defence. Bajrang very quickly got two pints twice and raced to a well-controlled 8-0 lead, which proved a match-winning lead for him.

Daulet Niyazbekov, who lost to Aliyev in the quarter-finals, is a more reputed wrestler in this category. Kazakh is a three-time Asian champion and has two world championship medals to his name.mNiyazbekov, in fact, defeated Bajrang in the 2019 world championships semi-finals en route to winning silver.

On Friday in the Semi Final of the men’s freestyle 65kg weight class event, Bajrang tried hard but three-time World Champion and Rio Olympic Bronze medalist, Haji Aliev of Azerbaijan proved too good for him. Haji won by a huge margin of 12-5. Bajrang started his campaign with a very tough fight,  defeating Kyrgyzstan’s Ernazar Akmataliev on points as at the end of six minutes both were leveled at 3-3, but Bajrang was declared the winner on the basis of a point-scoring move.

 In the quarter Final Bajrang pinned down Iran’s Morteza Ghiasi Cheka to the mat and won the bout by fall. Bajrang started the contest on the back foot as he conceded a shot clock for passivity and gave one point to Morteza Ghiasi Cheka. The first round ended, Bajrang trailed 0-1. The second round was quite different as both wrestlers were going for it and it was the Iranian who caught Bajrang in a leg hold. The Indian however defended the position brilliantly and then received a second warning for passivity. With 90 seconds to go, Bajrang then turned up the ante and pinned down his opponent in a matter of seconds, winning the bout by fall.