LONDON, Aug 12:
Freestyle grappler Sushil Kumar capped the country’s most successful campaign at the Olympic Games with a historic silver medal as he became the first Indian to win back-to-back individual medals at the mega event, here today.
Sushil, a bronze medallist in 2008 at Beijing, fought bravely after vomiting and suffering dehydration following his semi-final victory, but ended up a 1-3 loser against a strong Japanese rival Tatsuhiro Yonemitsu in the gold medal bout.
The final was held inside three hours after his semi- final victory over Kazakhstan’s Akzhurek Tanatarov.
And to add to the 29-year-old Indian fighter’s woes he had picked up a neck injury too that hampered his progress against Guangzhou Asian Games champion Yonemitsu.
The Haryana wrestler’s silver medal was also India’s third wrestling medal in Olympic history with K D Jadhav (1952) and Yogeshwar Dutt, won win bronze yesterday in the 60kg freestyle class, being the previous winners.
India, thus, ended its Games campaign with six medals — its best ever show at the biggest sports extravaganza — though four years ago at Beijing shooter Abhinav Bindra also won a gold, which eluded India here.
Wrestling and shooting provided India two medals each, while women boxing and badminton added one medal each.
At Beijing India had bagged one gold and 2 bronze, won by Sushil and boxer Vijender Singh.
India’s hopes to add a gold to its kitty went up in smoke when Sushil could not match up to his Japanese rival, and failed to break through Yonemitsu’s stout defence.
Just prior to Sushil’s brave effort, India’s lone runner in the men’s marathon Ram Singh Yadav finished a distant 78th out of 105 starters by clocking a slow 2 hours, 30 minutes and 19 seconds.
It was a far cry from the best personal best time of 2:16.59 that he set up in the Mumbai Marathon in January to dip under the Olympic ‘B’ standard of 2:18.00.
The day’s focus for India was firmly trained on Sushil who progressed to the final after getting past three rivals.
The star Indian grappler trailed 0-1 after the first round and was out of the contest within 30 seconds of the second round when Yonemitsu penetrated his defence, lifted him up and banged him on the mat to fetch a decisive three-point lead.
Sushil had made a stunning comeback in the semifinal but could not repeat that in the final, although he reduced the margin by getting one point.
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