Sushil Kumar's Beijing bronze ended India's 56-year wait and transformed Indian wrestling

Thursday marked the 12th anniversary of Sushil Kumar winning India a bronze medal in wrestling at the Beijing Olympics. He was the second Indian to win a wrestling medal after Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. Kumar bagged the bronze under the 66 kg freestyle category by beating Kazaksthan's Leonid Spirinodov 3-1. Years later, Kumar bettered his Beijing Olympics bronze with a silver at the 2012 London Olympics.

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Sushil Kumar won his 2008 Beijing Olympics bronze medal 12 years ago

Kumar's run at the Beijing Olympics started with a loss to Andriy Stadnik in the first round of the 66 kg freestyle event. However, he beat Doug Schwab in the first round and Albert Batyrov in the second to finally meet Spiridonov. Kumar trailed 0-1 before winning all the remaining rounds to secure his bronze medal. Kumar shared a video of the competition on his social media, celebrating his victory. "My medal to glory...Medal that completely changed the Indian wrestling as well as my life," Kumar wrote.

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Sushil Kumar wrestling journey

Following his bronze at Beijing, Kumar bagged the gold at World Championships in Moscow in 2010, along with the gold at the Commonwealth Games held in Delhi in the same year. While he secured a gold in 2012, he lost to Japan's Tatsushiro Yonemitsu in the finals. Today, Kumar is the only Indian since independence to win two individual Olympic medals. He is also among the few athletes to win gold for three consecutive Commonwealth Games (2010, 2014 and 2018). Following Sushil Kumar's historic bronze, wrestlers like Bajrang Punia, Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Phogat have emerged as prominent wrestlers in India. 

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Sushil Kumar's upcoming journey

Sushil Kumar is currently facing a rough patch since his last few outings, which includes his opening-round exit from the 2019 World Wrestling Championships. He opted out of the trials for the Indian team for Asian Championships due to his shoulder injury. In his place, Jitender Kumar represented and won a silver for India at the 2019 Asian meet in New Delhi.

As the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) will conduct the trials for the Tokyo Olympics, Kumar has another chance to compete once again. He will compete with Narsingh Yadav, Jitender, Praveen Rana, Amit Dhankar and upcoming star Gaurav Baliyan. While wrestlers are to begin training at the national camp, Kumar has chosen to train alone at the Chhatrasal Stadium in New Delhi. Other players are expected to reach the camp in Sonepat on September 1.

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(Image credit: Sushil Kumar Twitter – @WrestlerSushil)