Jakarta: The movie Dangal was based on the lives of Phogat sisters, Babita and Geeta, but Monday it was the turn of first cousin Vinesh to enter the history books and become folklore material herself. Vinesh became the first Indian woman wrestler to win a gold medal at the Asian Games, brushing aside her rivals with remarkable ease in the 50kg category here.
Vinesh was a medal-favourite in her category and was likely to face stiff competition from Japan’s Yuki Irie whom she outplayed 6-2 in the final.
Putting behind her heart-breaking loss at the Olympics two years ago, Vinesh began her victorious campaign with a revenge win against Chinese Yanan Sun against whom she had suffered that terrible leg injury which cut short her journey in Rio.
This time Vinesh did not give her opponent any chance and came out a dominant winner with a 8-2 score. In the next bout she brushed aside the challenge of Korea’s Hyungjoo Kim by technical superiority. She ended the bout with a four-point throw.
Vinesh’s semifinal lasted just 75 seconds as she moved into the final with a ‘fitley’ (a leg move). She was already up 4-0 and then rolled over her opponent thrice with the leg-lock.
The gold also enabled Vinesh to achieve another feat as she became the only woman wrestler to win two medals in back-to-back Asian Games. She had earlier won bronze in the 48kg category at the 2014 Incheon Asian Games. She also has successive gold medals at the 2014 and 2018 Commonwealth Games.
“I had targetted gold. I had 3-4 silver medals at the Asia level. So I was determined to get a gold. My body responded well. I had trained well and God was also kind to me. Everything fell in place for me today (Monday),” said Vinesh with moist eyes after winning gold in the 50kg freestyle category.
Earlier, Sakshi Malik paid the price for being over-defensive and was left to fight for bronze in the 62kg category. Sakshi was hardly challenged before her semifinal round as she easily won against Thailand’s Salinee Srisombat (10-0) and Ayaulym Kassymova (10-0). She was up 4-0 in her semifinal bout against Kyrgyzstan’s Aisuluu Tynybekova but became very defensive and lost 7-8.
CWG silver medallist Pooja Dhanda will also fight for bronze after losing her semifinal in the 57kg.
Sumit Malik, the last remaining Indian in the men’s freestyle, bit the dust in the 125kg category as he could not resist his opponent even for two minutes, losing by technical superiority.