The biggest success of Yogeshwar Dutt’s career was winning the bronze medal for the country in the 2012 London Olympics.
Yogeshwar Dutt is the third Indian to win a medal in wrestling for the country.
India got two medals in wrestling in the London Olympic Games. Sushil Kumar won the silver medal while Yogeshwar Dutt won the bronze medal. Bronze was put around Yogeshwar’s neck in London but after years it changed to silver.
Yogeshwar Dutt’s medal journey started in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Seeing Leander Paes won the bronze medal in 1996, he was very inspired and decided that one day he too would win a medal for the country. After remaining empty handed in two Olympic Games, he finally got success in the year 2012 and his dream of winning a medal was fulfilled.
Could not achieve success in two Olympic Games
Eight years later, the first wrestler got a chance to participate in his first Olympics in Athens in 2004. Yogeshwar, who came to play the Olympics at the age of 21, was not very experienced. He had already lost to the two-time Olympic champion in the first round. His performance improved in the year 2008 but he still failed to win the medal. Yogeshwar Dutt reached the quarterfinals, but lost to Kenichi Yumoto of Japan.
Lost in pre quarter final
Yogeshwar Dutt made a winning start in his first bout at the London Olympics by defeating Anatolie Ilarionovitch Guidea of Bulgaria 3-1. After this, in the pre-quarterfinals, the Indian wrestler lost to four-time world champion Besik Kudukhov of Russia. His eye was injured in this match. Despite this, his medal hopes did not end. Kudukho reached the final, giving Yogeshwar another chance to win the medal. In the first and second repechage rounds, he defeated Franklin Gomez of Puerto Rico and Masoud Esmaeilpour of Iran.
Yogeshwar was competing with North Korea’s Ri Jong-Myong for the bronze medal. After losing the first round, Yogeshwar won the second round and leveled 1-1. The last round was a very exciting match. In the end Yogeshwar Dutt won by using the trademark ‘Fitale’ bet.
Bronze medal was upgraded to silver
. Russian wrestler Besik Kudukhov, who defeated Yogeshwar at the London Olympics and won a silver medal, was found guilty of doping after which his silver medal was taken away. However, this decision was taken after his death. Russian wrestler Besik Kudukhov, a four-time world champion, died in a car accident in 2013. Just before the start of the Rio Olympics, the International Olympic Committee again conducted a dope test on the sample of wrestler Besik Kudukhov, taken during the London Olympics, in which he was found guilty.
After the announcement of the medal upgrade, Yogeshwar is also considered a silver medalist in London. In this way, other Indian players who won silver in London Olympics joined the ranks of wrestler Sushil Kumar and shooter Vijay Kumar. With this, he became the second Indian wrestler to win a silver medal in the Olympics. Sushil Kumar is the first wrestler to get the silver medal in the 66 kg weight category of the same category.
Sushil Kumar created history in London Olympics with deteriorating health and tired body
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