Aman Sehrawat won the bronze in the men’s freestyle 57kg event at the Paris 2024 Olympics wrestling tournament on Friday to become India’s youngest medal winner at the Summer Games.
At the age of 21 years and 24 days, Aman Sehrawat bettered PV Sindhu’s record of 21 years, one month and 14 days when she bagged the silver medal at the Rio 2016 Olympics.
On his Olympic debut, Aman Sehrawat, an Asian champion, got the better of Puerto Rico’s Darian Cruz, a Pan American Games bronze medallist, with a convincing 13-5 scoreline.
This was India’s first medal in wrestling at Paris 2024, sixth overall and the second successive one in the event at the Olympics. Ravi Kumar Dahiya had won silver in the event at Tokyo 2020.
Aman, interestingly, had bested Dahiya in the national wrestling trials to earn the right to represent India in the men’s 57kg category at Paris 2024.
India have, so far, won one silver and five bronze medals at the Paris Games.
In wrestling, this was India’s eighth medal at the Olympics. Sushil Kumar and Ravi Kumar Dahiya won silver medals at London 2012 and Tokyo 2020, respectively. The remaining six medals are bronze.
In the bronze medal match, Darian Cruz made the first move by attacking Aman’s leg and pushing him out of bounds for the first point. The Indian wrestler was quick to respond with a takedown for two points but the Puerto Rican once again got the hold of Aman’s leg to lead 3-2.
Aman was proactive once again after conceding the points and got a couple of two-pointers to go into the break leading 6-3.
Cruz got the first two points after the break and attacked Aman’s leg several times but the Indian wrestler converted his defence into attack swiftly and took points quickly to seal the victory.
Aman’s bronze has also made Paris 2024 India’s second-most successful Olympic Games in terms of medal count. India won six medals – two silvers and four bronze – at London 2012 and seven – one gold, two silvers, and four bronze – at Tokyo 2020.
In the semi-finals, Aman was defeated by Rio 2016 silver medallist Rei Higuchi of Japan.
Earlier, the Indian wrestler registered back-to-back wins on technical superiority with victory over Macedonia’s Vladimir Egorov, former European champion, in the round of 16 and over former world champion Zelimkhan Abakarov of Albania in the quarter-final.
A total of six wrestlers are representing India at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Nisha Dahiya (women’s 68kg) was eliminated in the quarter-finals, Vinesh Phogat (women’s 50kg) was disqualified for a failed weigh-in ahead of her final while Antim Panghal (women’s 53kg) and Anshu Malik (women’s 57kg) were knocked out in the opening round.
Reetika Hooda, in the women’s 76kg division, starts her campaign on Saturday.
