“These two girls saved the face of India at Rio”.
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This was India’s fifth medal in wrestling where Sushil Kumar has the distinction of winning silver in London 2012.
Fielding its biggest ever contingent at the Olympic Games, India has pocketed just one bronze medal so far, far away from the double digit medal hope as predicted before the Games.
Female wrestler Sakshi Malik won India’s first medal for the Rio Games.
India’s Sakshi Malik (Blue) trounced Mangolia’s Orkhon Purevdorg 12-3 in Repechage round to advance to bronze medal play-off in Rio Olympics, Aug. 17.
The victory also saw her become only the fourth Indian wrestler to win a medal in Olympics after Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav, two-time Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar and Yogeshwar Dutt.
Sindhu, who won the first silver medal for the country in badminton, was offered six business class tickets anywhere in the domestic sector.
Sakshi had lost 2-9 in the quarter-finals to Russia’s Valeriia Koblova in the fifth bout of the day before getting a second chance in repechage when her conqueror reached the final.
If you take the longest, or even the medium-term view of India’s performance in the 2016 Olympics, it has been nothing short of a disaster. The remaining three days of action would prove to be crucial.
There are ways to make money in popular sports, but the hardest way is to qualify for Olympics, win medals for the country starved of sporting accolades, and then wait for the windfall.
For India, the seniormost Bombayla impressed the most with a total score of 72 from her eight arrows including three flawless 10, while Deepika flopped with a total of 69.
Sakshi Malik has proved that daughters are no way less than boys and are quite capable of bringing laurels and making the state and the country proud.
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Lalita could not better her show in the final as she clocked 9:22.74 for a top-10 finish.
