Bronze in Paris, Aman Sehrawat’s progress is huge for Indian wrestling

Aman Sehrawat, 21-year-old, grappler from Haryana won bronze medal at the Paris Olympics (PTI)

Once he gets over the disappointment of missing out on the gold-medal bout, Aman Sehrawat can reflect on just how well he fought to get to the semi-final in the first place. At 21, his best years as a wrestler lie ahead of him. He can take inspiration from Rei Higuchi, his conqueror in the semi-final. The Japanese was a few months younger than Sehrawat is now when he had to settle for silver in Rio Di Janeiro in 2016. He will start the final red-hot favourite for gold.

The progress that he has already made is staggering. Having taken up the sport as a nine-year-old after watching Sushil Kumar win his silver medal at the London Olympics in 2012, Sehrawat was orphaned a couple of years later. Within six years of taking up the sport, he has now won bronze at the Olympics, a bronze at the World Cadets Championship in Zagreb. Age-group medals at Asian level followed before a brutal reality check at the World Championships in Belgrade last September. Zelimkhan Abakarov, the Russian who now fights under the Albanian flag, thrashed him 11-0.

With immense pride, I congratulate Aman Sehrawat on winning the Bronze Medal in Wrestling Men's Freestyle 57 kg at the #ParisOlympics2024!

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This remarkable achievement for Bharat reflects your exceptional perseverance & talent.

Your triumph is a testament to hard work &… pic.twitter.com/ZR9JZw1Sgz

— Kiren Rijiju (@KirenRijiju) August 9, 2024

In Paris, Sehrawat returned the favour in emphatic fashion. Abakarov looked absolutely stunned as Sehrawat won 12-0 on technical superiority with more than two minutes of the bout remaining. And it was no fluke either, with Sehrawat simply too quick and too clever for his opponent.

If he can maintain focus and discipline, Sehrawat has at least two more Olympics in him. Sushil was 25 when he won his first medal on the grand stage, a bronze in Beijing (2008). Yogeshwar Dutt was 29 when he took his bronze in London (2012). And Ravi Kumar Dahiya, who won silver in Sehrawat’s 57kg freestyle category in Tokyo, was also older, at 23. Bajrang Punia, India’s other medallist in 2021, was 27.

Sehrawat’s opponent in the bronze medal bout, Puerto Rico’s Darian Toi Cruz, cut his teeth on the college wrestling circuit in the USA. Cruz lost to Higuchi 12-2 in the quarterfinal, and made his way into the bronze-medal bout after Iran’s Alireza Sarlak gave him a walkover in the repechage. Cruz finished 17th at the last World Championships.

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