Picture Credit: Tokyo Olympics 2020
The Day 13 at Tokyo Olympics 2020 was always going to be a mouth-watering day for Indian fans with so many matches to watch out for. After Indian men's hockey team defeated Germany by 5-4 in a thrilling encounter early in the morning, they etched their names in history books by securing country's first-ever Olympic medal in 41 years.
The onus was then on Ravi Kumar Dahiya in the afternoon as the 23-year-old got set to become only the second-ever Indian wrestler (after Sushil Kumar in 2012) to feature in the finals at the Summer Games. It was quite a dramatic journey for Dahiya till the finals of men's freestyle 57kg event as he completely dominated the first few bouts. However, when it looked like he would bow out in the semi-finals, the wrestler scripted a heroic comeback to enter the finals against all odds.
Road to finals at Tokyo 2020
1/8 Final - Ravi Kumar Dahiya beat Oscar Tigreros (Colombia) by SUP
1/4 Final - Ravi Kumar Dahiya beat Georgi Vangelov (Bulgaria) by SUP
Semi-finals - Ravi Kumar Dahiya beat Nurislam Sanayev (Kazakhstan) by Fall
Ravi Kumar Dahiya loses in the final; settles for silver medal
With 1.3 billion people glued to their TV screens on Thursday, the six-minute fight at the Makuhari Messe Hall Mat B was set to be the most important few minutes in history of Indian sports. As Ravi Kumar Dahiya walked out in the arena, it was always going to be a huge task as he was up against ROC's Zaur Rizvanovich Uguev who is a 2-time world champion.
It was an incredible fight between the duo as there was nothing to separate the two opponents in the early stages of the finals. However, things slowly started to open up in the contest as Uguev eventually won the match 7-4 as Ravi had to settle for a silver medal.
Indian wrestler clinches India’s 5th medal at Tokyo 2020
Despite the loss, Ravi Kumar Dahiya secured a historic silver medal at the Games which is India’s fifth medal at Tokyo 2020 after Mirabai Chanu (Silver), PV Sindhu, Lovlina Borgohain and Indian men’s hockey team (Bronze). Notably, this is India’s 9th ever Olympic silver medal in the history of Summer Games.