Wednesday, August 20, 2008

India gets bronze in wrestling at Beijing - a repeat performance after 1952

Sushil Kumar free style wrestler of India won the bronze medal after beating Kazakhstan's wrestler in a play-off in the men's 66 kg freestyle wrestling through repechage round at the Beijing Olympics. This gave India its second medal in the on going Olympics. Earlier, Sushil Kumar lost to Ukrainian Andriy Stadnik on points after being pegged down 3-8 on technical points. This is repeat performance after 1952 when Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav, who gave the country its first individual Olympic medal, something which has been repeated this year in Beijing.

Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav or KD Jadhav was independent India's first individual [[Olympic Games when he won the wrestling bronze medal at the 1952 Helsinki games. Since 1900 when Norman Pritchard won 2 silver medals in athletics, India had won gold medals only in field hockey, a team sport. In fact many don’t know about KD Yadav, now when media will talk about Sushil’s achievement they will remember him too and give him some recognition. This medal will also help to revive wrestling in India, wherein India can do wonders.

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