Sushil Kumar repeats history after 56 years, wins bronze for India
Beijing | Rabu, Agust 20 2008 IST
Amid nerve-wrecking tension and high drama Sushil Kumar recreated history as he became the first ever Indian Wrestler to win a bout in a tie-breaker tossing out Leonid Spiridonov of Kazakhstan to clinch the second medal for the country - a bronze - in men''s 66kg freestyle category at the Olympics Games here today. Interestingly, in the 2006 Doha Asian Games also, Sushil had beaten Leonid to win the bronze medal. In the medal round, both the wrestlers adopted defensive tactics but Sushil displayed some great agility to beat his rival in the first round but he lost the second and in the third round both failed to score and were locked 2-2 after three rounds. To end the stalemate, toss was used to decide who will make the first move in the tie breaker and Leonid got the chance to make the first move but Sushil turned the corner and emerged winner. This was the first time in International wrestling history that Indian grappler managed to win the bout after losing the toss. Sushil''s campaign seemed nearly over when he lost his first round battle against eventual silver medallist Andriy Stadnik but repechage provided him a ray of hope and the Indian proved simply irresistible as he beat three grapplers on the trot to win the bronze. Down in the dumps after his opening round defeat, Sushil came up with an incredible show, beating Doug Schwab (US), Albert Batyrov (Belarus) and finally the losing semifinalist Leonid Spiridonov (Kazakhstan) in the repechage rounds to earn his slice of history. Sushil thus became the second Indian wrestler after KD Jadhav, who won a bronze in the 1952 Helsinki Games, to win an Olympic medal. The 25-year-old Sushil dedicated his medal to Guru Satpal, saying that ''''I owe this success to him. He has been my inspiration.'''' Former World pole vault champion Sergey Babuka presented the medal to the Gold medal winner Ramazan Sahin (Turkey), Silver to Ukraine''s Andriy Stadnik and bronze medal jointly to Sushil Kumar and Georgia''s Otar Tushishvili. -- (UNI) -- 20SPD29.xml
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