Sakshi Malik: From Bylanes Of Rohtak To The Podium In Rio
Sakshi Malik shot to fame when she won a silver at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in 2014. Since then, it was never looking back for the Rohtak grappler
Highlights
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Sakshi Malik won bronze in 58kg freestyle event at Rio Olympics
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Sakshi Malik is the first Indian woman wrestler to win Olympics medal
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Sakshi Malik shot to fame with a silver at 2014 Commonwealth Games
Wrestler Sakshi Malik on Thursday became the first Indian woman wrestler to win an Olympics medal when she clinched a bronze in woman's 58kg freestyle category at the 2016 Rio Olympics
Staging a strong comeback in the dying seconds, Sakshi trounced her Kyrgystan opponent Aisuluu Tynybekova 8-5 to achieve the historic feat.
Hailing from Haryana's Rohtak district, Malik took up wrestling in 2002 under her coach Ishwar Dahiya and embarked on a journey to win laurels for nation and her family.
At an early age, she had to fight against social issues as women in Haryana were not allowed to participate in wrestling events.
Malik shot to fame when she bagged a silver in the women's 58kg freestyle category at the 2014 Commonwealth Games held in Glasgow.
Later, she won a bronze in women's 60kg freestyle category at the Asian Wrestling Championship held in Doha last year. Malik ended 2015 on a high when she clinched gold in the National Wrestling Championship held in New Delhi
But, destiny had something else in store for the 23-year-old wrestler. Malik along with Vinesh Phogat earned Olympic quota spots after they entered the final of 2nd Olympic Games World Qualifying Tournament in Istanbul.
Olympic Glory
With a 119-member Indian contingent suffering an ignominious medal drought in the competition so far, all hopes were lied on the grapplers who had won two medals at 2012 London Olympics and one in the 2008 Beijing Games.
After male grapplers Hardeep Singh and Ravinder Khatri crashed out of the Olympics on the tenth day, it was up to Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat to take the onus of getting a medal for India on the eleventh day.
However, Vinesh Phogat seriously injured her knee and had to concede the match to China's Sun Yuan. Meanwhile, Malik too lost her bout to Russia's Valeriia Koblova 2-9 in the quarter-final.
However, she got an opportunity to aim for a bronze after qualifying for a repechage bout. She did not disappoint her fans.
After beating Mongolia's Orkhon Purevdoj 12-3 in the repechage bout, she geared up to face Kyrgystan opponent Aisuluu Tynybekova.
After trailing 0-5 in the initial rounds, Malik through clever moves staged a historic comeback to clinch the bronze 8-5.