Tokyo Olympics 2020: Bajrang Punia congratulates Ravi Kumar Dahiya, says 'Go For Gold'

Wishes and praises poured on Indian Wrestler Ravi Dahiya as he found himself a place in the Tokyo Olympics 2020 Wrestling Finals in the Men’s 57kg category by defeating Nurislam Sanayev. Indian Wrestler Bajrang Punia who is also a part of the Indian Olympics Contingent in Olympics 2020 tweeted congratulating Ravi Dahiya for this milestone as an athlete representing a nation having a population of almost 1.4 billion people. The Indian grappler assured a medal for India in wrestling by entering the Olympics final for the first time since Sushil Kumar in 2012.

In the semifinals, Ravi Dahiya had a pretty fair opening round, before his counterpart managed a leg hold and turned Dahiya around 3 times. This took the scoreboard to 9-2, with Sanayev leading in the second round with just two minutes left on the clock. Meanwhile, Dahiya kept pushing and took the point to 9-5, before getting Sanayev’s shoulders on the mat. Despite the scorecard being stuck at 9-7, he went on to pin the Kazakh grappler for his final point and won the Olympics semifinal by fall. The sheer talent of turning the match around after getting hold of just one error from Sanayev shows the amount of mental stength and determination that the 23-year-old possesses. Back in 2019, during his World Championships debut, Dahiya defeated the European champion Arsen Harutyunyan in the round of 16, and the 2017 World champion Yuki Takahashi in the quarterfinal,and earned his qualification for the Tokyo Olympics 2020.

Bajrang Punia to begin his Olympics 2020 campaign on August 6th

Bajrang Punia on the other hand, has his 65kg category freestyle event on 6th of August. The semi-finals and finals of this category would take place on August 7th. Another Indian Wrestler, Deepak Punia from the 86kg weight category, saw his exit from the race to the finals after losing the match 10-0 to USA’s David Taylor and will now wrestle for an Olympics Bronze Medal on August 5th. With his place secured in the Men's Wrestling finals, Ravi Kumar Dahiya would definitely be happy with his Herculean win over Kazakhstan's Nurislam Sanayev. He also received applauses from Youth Affairs and Sports Minister Anurag Thakur and the Union Minister of Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju.

(Image Source: Akashvani Sports/Twitter)