Comeback King Dahiya guns for Gold
Tokyo/New Delhi: India's action on Wednesday had a moment of spirits being lifted as boxer Lovlina Borgohain won a bronze medal, India's third medal at Tokyo 2020 and the second bronze medal.
Debutant Borgohain bagged the bronze in the women's welterweight category after losing 5-0 against reigning world champion Busenaz Sürmeneli of Turkey in the 69kg semi-finals. Even though she was outplayed, Lovlina became India's second woman boxer with an Olympic medal after Mary Kom in the 2012 London Games.
Ravi Dahiya claimed a sensational result in freestyle 57 kg wrestling and is assured of at least a silver medal.
Dahiya became only the second Indian wrestler to qualify for the title clash at the Olympic Games when he turned around the semi-final bout by pinning Kazakhstan's Nurislam Sanayev on Wednesday.
Before Dahiya, who is the son of a Haryana farmer, Sushil Kumar was the only Indian to make the gold medal bout at the 2012 London Games but had to settle for a silver.
Despite being 2-9 down, Dahiya fought back in the last minute to win by Fall (pinning your shoulder's opponents to the mat). He will play the Gold medal match on August 5 against Zavur Uguev of ROC in Freestyle 57 kg bout.
Deepak Punia lost his semi-final and will fight in the Bronze medal match on Thursday.
Neeraj Chopra qualified for the men's javelin throw finals by topping the Group A qualification with a throw of 86.65m, but Shivpal Singh failed to do so in Group B.
Anshu Malik, who lost her opening bout in women's 57 kg, will compete in the repechage round next.
However, Anshu, who will be celebrating her 20th birthday on Thursday (August 5), has a shot at making it memorable as she will be competing for a bronze medal because of the repechage rule in wrestling.
In the last Indian participation for the day, the women's hockey team lost 1-2 to Argentina despite taking an early lead, thus ending their quest for gold. They will be up against Great Britain in the Bronze medal match.
With agency inputs
