Olympic wrestling 2024: Aman Sehrawat, the only Indian male wrestler to make it to the Paris Olympics 2024, won the bronze medal in the 57kg freestyle on Friday. Haryana-native Aman, 21, beat experienced Puerto Rican Darain Toi Cruz 13-5 in an aggressive bout.
Sehrawat's bronze on Friday night took India's medal tally at the Paris Games to six-- five bronze and a silver.
Aman’s bronze medal kept India's streak at the Olympic arena alive as the country has now secured a medal in wrestling at every edition of the Olympic Games since 2008 in Beijing.
"More pride thanks to our wrestlers! Congratulations to Aman Sehrawat for winning the Bronze Medal in the Men's Freestyle 57 kg at the Paris Olympics. His dedication and perseverance are clearly evident. The entire nation celebrates this remarkable feat," Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on X (formerly Twitter) briefly after the match got over.
Darian Toi won the first point of the game -- only seconds in to the bout. However, Aman didn't let his opponent enjoy the psychological edge of having scored first in the match and quickly earned two points to take the lead. A double hold on Aman’s legs helped Darian Toi to win two points to regain his lead. Aman responded by upping his aggressive game and pushed the Puerto Rican outside quickly to win the back the lead. Aman finished the first half strongly 6-3.
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Both wrestlers were aggressive in their approach but the emerging Indian talent didn't let his opponent regain the lead till the end and managed to win a medal in his debut Games. Darian Toi started the second half strongly and quickly brought down the gap to a point by winning two quick points. However, he couldn't win a single point from there as the Indian star kept winning more points. From 6-5, Aman kept frustrating the experienced campaigner to take the score to 13-5.
Earlier on Thursday, former world champion Zelimkhan Abakarov of Albania was beaten by Sehrawat via technical superiority to reach the semifinals.
However, later the day India's Asian Championship gold medallist lost to Japanese top-seed Rei Higuchi.