Showing extraordinary fighting spirit, woman wrestler Sakshi Malik ended India’s frustrating medal drought with a dramatic bronze-winning effort on day 12 of the Rio Olympic Games.
Kidambi Srikanth, Vinesh Phogat and Tintu Luka were also in action.
Here’s the roundup:
Sakshi creates history, Vinesh’s Rio 2016 journey ends in agony
Sakshi fought five bruising battles in the 58kg category in a single day before securing the podium place. She had lost her quarterfinal bout but got a fresh lease of life when her Russian conqueror reached the final, allowing the Indian to compete in the repechage round.
The 23-year-old grappler from Haryana climbed the medal rostrum with a spectacular come-from-behind 8-5 win over Aisuluu Tynybekova of Kyrgyzstan after trailing 0-5 in the first period.
It was the fifth bronze in wrestling for India in its long Olympic history stretching back to 1952 Helsinki Games when Kashaba Jadhav became its first individual medallist.
She is also the fourth female Olympic medallist from India, joining the ranks of weightlifter Karnam Malleshwari (2000, Sydney), boxer MC Mary Kom (2012, London) and shuttler Saina Nehwal (2012, London).
Sakshi also became the first female grappler from India to climb the podium in the quadrennial sports spectacle – the other four medals being won by men with two of those claimed by Sushil Kumar.
Her bronze medal winning feat was like a balm as it came after Vinesh Phogat was forced out of the 48kg competition due to an unfortunate knee injury suffered during her quarterfinal bout against Chinese rival Sun Yanan.
Vinesh had to be stretchered off the arena. The MRI scan confirmed a knee ligament tear. The injury occurred when the Chinese was leading 1-0.
Srikanth just falls short of epic win
The day for India commenced with the elimination of shuttler Srikanth, who went down fighting against defending champion Lin Dan to dash India’s medal hopes in men’s singles.
Taking the court a day after compatriot PV Sindhu had knocked out top Chinese shuttler Wang Yihan to enter the women’s singles semis, Srikanth gave Super Dan a tough time before going down 6-21 21-11 18-21 against the World No. 3.
The 21-year-old Hyderabad shuttler’s elimination after his loss to Dan in an hour and four minutes in the quarterfinals has left Sindhu as the lone Indian out of seven entrants in the fray in badminton.
Sindhu is to take on Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara on day 13 for a place in the final.
Tintu Luka gets season best time, but it’s not enough
In another disappointment, woman half miler Tintu Luka
ran a poorly judged 800m race and exited from the fray after finishing sixth in her first round heat in 2:00.58 which gave her the overall 29th place from 65 participants.
A protege of track legend P T Usha, she holds the national record of 1:59.17 which she created in 2010.
As usual she led the field till around 600m before fading on the final stretch to end her second Olympics campaign in disappointment.
Aditi Ashok has a fine day at golf
India’s teen golfer Aditi Ashok fired a flawless three-under 68 to lie tied seventh after the opening round of the women’s golf competition.
The 18-year-old from Bangalore, who won the qualifying finals to earn a full card on the Ladies European Tour (LET), picked up three birdies at the 2nd, 10th and 14th holes and parred the rests to stay three strokes adrift of the leader.
Aditi had represented India at the Asian Youth Games in 2013, Youth Olympic Games in 2014 and Asian Games in 2014.