Ravi Kumar Dahiya Enters Gold Medal Match, Deepak Punia Will Fight For Bronze
Ravi Kumar Dahiya is the second wrestler since Sushil Kumar to compete in the final of a wrestling at the Olympics.
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Ravi Kumar Dahiya has entered the gold medal match of the 57kg category after beating Nurislam Sanayev.
Deepak Punia was defeated 10-0 by American David Morris.
Ravi's final and Deepak's bronze medal bouts will take place on Thursday, 5 August.
The last leg of the Tokyo Olympics is proving to be the most fruitful for the Indian contingent with wrestler Ravi Kumar Dahiya entering the gold medal match of the 57kg freestyle event.
His win assure India its fourth medal of the Tokyo Olympics and he's also only the second wrestler from the country to enter the final at the Olympics. Sushil Kumar had played for the gold at the 2012 London Olympics where he won a silver.
Ravi next faces two-time world champion Zavur Uguev of the Russian Olympic Commitee in the final on Thursday.
Former junior world champion Deepak Punia too could finish on the podium, as he fights for the bronze medal on Thursday.
The third Indian wrestler in competition at the Tokyo Games today was 19-year-old woman Anshu Malik who lost her opening 57kg category bout 8-2 to two-time world championships bronze medallist Iryna Kurachkina of Belarus.
Kazakhstan's Nurislam Sanayev and India's Ravi Kumar during the 57kg semi-final at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
(Photo: PTI)
Ravi's Comeback Win in S/F
Ravi pulled off a massive come-from-behind victory to eliminate Nurislam Sanayev of Kazakhstan courtesy a 'victory by fall' in the semi-final bout.
Sanayev was the first to get on the board after Ravi was reprimanded for passivity call but he replied to that with a two-point take down.
Leading 2-1 heading into the second period, Dahiya was dealt a huge blow when Sanayev got behind the Indian, caught hold of his ankles and twirled him around a few times to flip the score 9-2 in his favour.
Desperately looking to turn things around, Dahiya made a brilliant comeback by first managing to push Sanayev out of bounds to reduce the deficit to 9-5. The move looked to have injured the Kazakh wrestler, but he decided to continue.
With just 50 seconds left on the clock, Dahiya scored a two-point takedown and converted it to a pin -- exposing both his opponent's shoulders to the mat -- and won the bout by fall.
Easy Early Victories
Ravi fought two bouts before entering the semi-final match on Wednesday and it was easy victories for the Indian. In the Round-of-16, he defeated Colombia's Oscar Tigreros by technical superiority after he dominated the bout 13-2.
He then beat Bulgaria's Georgi Vangelov 14-4 on technical superiority to reach the last-four. Dahiya opened the scoring in the bout with an explosive takedown of Vangelov, continuously targeting his right leg and building a 6-0 lead heading into the second period. In the second period, Dahiya scored from a two-legged takedown to go 8-0 up. In a series of quick exchanges after that, Dahiya came out on top to build up a 14-4 lead to win the bout by technical superiority.
In wrestling, a 10-point lead over the opponent results in a victory by technical superiority.
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