Zeenews Bureau
Beijing, Aug 20: Sushil Kumar brought smiles on the faces of millions of Indians across the globe by giving the country its second medal of the Beijing Olympics after Abhinav Bindra brought home the Gold earlier. Indian grappler Sushil, bagged a bronze in wrestling’s 66 kg freestyle event, exactly 56 years after KD Jadhav brought glory at Helsinki in 1952..
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Indian grappler Sushil Kumar won the 1st repachage round against American Doug Schwab and pinned down Belarussian Albert Batyrov in the second.The glorious moment came after Sushil outclassed Kazakh grappler Leonid Spiridonov of Kazakastan 2-1, 0-1, 1-0 to win an Olympic Bronze medal.
Sushil won two repechage rounds after he had lost his first grapple in the morning to a far superior Ukrainian Andriy Stadnik 3-8.
What makes the achievement even more significant is that Sushil fought and won all three of his bouts in less than one hour.
After the energy sapping hour, Sushil has time to reflect on his achievement.
"I will contnue to win medals for India. All the fights were tiring and nerve wrecking," said Sushil.
Sushil`s campaign seemed nearly over when he lost his first round battle against eventual silver medallist Andriy Stadnik but repechage provided him a ray of hope and the Indian proved simply irresistible as he beat three grapplers on the trot to win the bronze.
Down in the dumps after his opening round defeat, Sushil came up with an incredible show, beating Doug Schwab (USA), Albert Batyrov (Belarus) and finally the losing semifinalist Leonid Spiridonov (Kazakhstan) in the repechage rounds to earn his slice of history.
Sushil thus became the second Indian wrestler after K D Jadhav who won a bronze in the 1952 Helsinki Games to win an Olympic medal.
Incidentally, in the 2006 Doha Asian Games also, Sushil had beaten Leonid to win the bronze.
Against Leonid, Sushil grabbed early initiative by scoring two technical points that proved decisive in the end.
Though the Kazakh grappler scored one in the second period and managed to thwart Sushil, the Indian proved his superiority again in the third period and eventually prevailed 3-2 to trigger frenzied celebration among the Indians present at the Chinese Agricultural University here.
How Sushil won it
It may be the ultimate rural sport in India, but the rules and the format of how the entire wrestling competition takes place at the Olympics and Asian Games level is still a mystery for most followers.
Sushil Kumar`s bronze medal will probably highlight the format of the sport.
In fact, so little is known about the wrestling format that numerous media reports after Sushil Kumar`s loss in the morning round said he had been eliminated, though he was still alive in the competition.
Sushil`s fate hung in the balance till his Ukrainian conqueror Andriy Stadnik reached the final, at which point Sushil got an entry into the Repechage contest and a chance to fight for the bronze. He went on to win three bouts and grab the bronze, which was India`s second medal after Abhinav Bindra`s gold in shooting.
All wrestlers who lose against the finalists get Repechage matches. There are two separate groups of Repechage: one group of wrestlers who had lost against the first finalist, and another group of wrestlers who had lost against the second finalist.
The wrestling competition is held by arriving at an ideal number of wrestlers - that is 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, and so on. If there is no ideal number of wrestlers in a category, qualification matches take place.
In the case of Sushil Kumar`s category, there were 21 wrestlers. So, after giving a bye to 11 wrestlers - by draw numbers - the other 10 were paired off, with the numbers drawn at random.
Sushil was one of the 11 wrestlers who drew a bye in the first round, while Stadnik came through the qualification, where he beat Dug Schwab.
The Repechage matches feature all wrestlers who lost in the first round - including in matches to obtain the ideal number - against one of the two finalists up to the losers in the semi-finals, by direct elimination.
The winners of the two Repechage groups each receive the bronze medal.
The main competition begins with a weigh-in one day before the actual competition and then on the day of the event, it starts with the Qualification round (if required) to arrive at an ideal number (4,8,16,32,64) and then the elimination rounds. The Repechage stage is arrived at after the two finalists have been identified.
Each weight category begins and ends in a day.
Bureau Report
