Aug 10, 2024 01:17 AM IST
Aman Sehrawat won bronze in the 57kg wrestling at the Paris Olympics, securing India’s sixth medal despite weight challenges
After Aman Sehrawat lost his semi-final to Japanese Rei Higuchi on Thursday and had to fight again on Friday for his men’s 57kg bronze medal bout, the Indian wrestling contingent’s minds invariably went back to a day before.
Vinesh Phogat, the only other Indian wrestler who was made to turn up twice for the weigh-in at these Games, had fallen short of meeting the requirement by 100 grams. Sehrawat too had put on 1.5 kilos by the end of his third bout on Thursday. While attracting rebound weight is natural for wrestlers frequently hydrating through the day after cutting their natural weight, chances could not be taken again.
Right after his semi-final ended in the evening, the 21-year-old swung back to the mat again for an hour-and-a-half before reaching the Athletes’ Village and hitting the gym at around half past midnight. He stayed put there until 4am on Friday morning. Only once the extra kilos had been shed and the weight was brought under control did he rest and turn up just fine for his second weigh-in.
The Chhatrasal Stadium product turned up just fine for the medal bout as well, signing off wrapped with the India flag around the mat on Friday evening in the first such sighting at wrestling’s at the Champ-de-Mars Arena. Sehrawat beat Puerto Rican Darian Cruz 13-5 to grab the 57kg bronze at the Paris Olympics. India’s sixth medal at these Games, and the fifth bronze.
In an otherwise sombre Games for Indian wrestling, the country’s lone male grappler lived up to this promising tag and potential hopes. He also kept the Olympic medal for India in the 57kg, the same weight category in which Ravi Dahiya was a silver medallist three years ago in Tokyo while also extending India’s medal-winning tradition in wrestling that began from the 2008 Games and carried on in every Olympics since.
“I had come here thinking about winning the gold. But I’m happy to have come back and win the bronze too,” Sehrawat said after the win.
The high-scoring bout in which both grapplers were constantly on the attack and the scores went back and forth, Sehrawat was the smarter and more ferocious wrestler, bringing his trademark attacking game into the mat. Cruz initiated the first move to the Indian’s left leg but Sehrawat defended well. Cruz was up by a point after pushing the Indian out of the mat but Sehrawat struck back in the next minute to go 2-1 up.
Both were hunting for the other’s legs and with their arms locked, the Puerto Rican slipped down and was soon up by a point now. Sehrawat had the response right back again to go 4-3 up and got another two points just on the buzzer to go into the break with a 6-3 lead.
Cruz had narrowed the lead to a point but off went Sehrawat again, effecting the 180 degree rotation to fetch another two points. With less than 90 seconds to go, the Indian grabbed Cruz’s left leg and opened up a five-point lead. His leg defence holding on, he held on to the lead and the medal.
Until Sehrawat began his Paris campaign on Thursday morning, the tale of India’s wrestling in Paris had been of missed medals, spirit-shattering disqualifications and a disciplinary breach. The youngster shifted the spotlight back on the mat by first sweeping past North Macedonia’s Vladimir Egorov 10-0 before making two-time World Championships medallist Zelimkhan Abakarov appear a shadow of his pedigree in another win via technical superiority.
The slick Higuchi was too long a bridge to cross. But it was his win against the Abakarov — the Albanian had comfortably beaten Sehrawat at last year’s Worlds en route to his bronze — that showed how far the young Indian, last year’s Asian Games bronze medallist, has come.
Ever so hunting for his legs, Sehrawat was constantly on the prowl against the Albanian, executing the leg laces and the side-leg attacks with fine craft.
“Aman is a lot more mature now,” Virender Singh Dahiya, India’s national wrestling coach, said. “His strength is that he never gets defensive. He wants to tire his opposition out by constantly dominating them. That’s what he did so well against Abakarov — executing a side-leg attack and following it up with a gut-wrench. That was a big win for him.”
This is a big medal for him, given from where he started his journey in wrestling. Growing up in Birohar, a village in Jhajjar, Sehrawat wasn’t even in his teens yet when he lost his mother and father within a short span of time. Raised by his uncle, Aman made the Chhatrasal Stadium his home, and the sport of wrestling his healing balm.
“This medal is dedicated to me mother and father,” Sehrawat said.
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