How Sakshi Malik landed India’s first women’s wrestling Olympic medal
Fighting against the tide, Indian wrestler Sakshi Malik chose the Olympic stage at Rio 2016 to emerge from the shadows and create history.
Wrestling
If Geeta Phogat’s gold medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games brought India’s women’s wrestling to the forefront, it was Sakshi Malik who helped it seal a place in the Indian sporting folklore.
Sakshi Malik is the first Indian woman wrestler to win an Olympic medal. But to think, she was not even supposed to be at the Summer Games.
Competing alongside Geeta Phogat, the face of Indian women’s wrestling at the time, in the 58kg category, Sakshi Malik for long was second fiddle to her much-celebrated compatriot.
Building up to Rio 2016 Olympics, Geeta was expected to be the flagbearer for women’s wrestling at the Summer Games. But at the 2015 World Wrestling Championships in Las Vegas, an Olympic qualifier held in September, Geeta Phogat could not make it past the qualifying round and lost in the first repechage round too thus failing to seal a spot at the Summer Games.
Sakshi Malik's Rio Olympics call
Geeta Phogat had another opportunity to make the cut for the Games in an Olympic Qualification Tournament in Mongolia in April 2016. However, she bowed out in the first round and lost an opportunity to fight for the two quota places available.
Geeta also decided to forfeit the repechage bout in Mongolia. That did not sit well with the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI), who would go on to provisionally suspend the wrestler and slot in Sakshi Malik for the final Olympic qualifiers in Istanbul, Turkey the following month.
In Istanbul, Sakshi Malik beat China’s Zhang Lan on criteria in the semi-final to clinch the quota place for Rio 2016.Her Olympic medal had started taking shape.
“It was my dream! I had been wrestling since I was 12-13 years old. I was working hard day and night to achieve my dream,” she would later tell Olympics.com.
Sakshi Malik’s Olympic medal moment
Though the Indian wrestler qualified for her maiden Olympics at Rio 2016, Sakshi Malik was not considered a medal contender.
India had their medal hopes at the Rio 2016 Olympics pinned on Abhinav Bindra, Jitu Rai, Sania Mirza, Vinesh Phogat and Saina Nehwal.
But the shooters and tennis players drew a blank and thus India’s hopes shifted to wrestling - a sport that had guaranteed medals in the previous two editions courtesy Sushil Kumar and Yogeshwar Dutt.
Having seen her friend Vinesh Phogat stretchered out from the Carioca Arena with an injury, the onus was on Sakshi Malik to win an Olympic medal.
"The only thought in my mind was ‘you have been working for this for years and now you have to complete it," Sakshi said.
Competing in the 58kg category, Sakshi Malik had a few close matches as she defeated Sweden's Johanna Mattsson 5-4 in the qualification round and then upstaged Mariana Cherdivara of Moldova 5-5 on criteria in the pre-quarters.
In the quarter-finals, Sakshi Malik went down 2-9 to Russia's Valeria Koblova, the eventual Rio silver-medallist. With Koblova making the final, Sakshi made the repechage rounds.
“As Koblova made it to the final, I took a sigh of relief. I knew I would get a chance now,” Sakshi recalled.
In the repechage, she dominated Mongolia's Purevdorjiin Orkhon 12-3 to set up a bronze medal match against Asian champion Aisuluu Tynybekova of Kyrgyzstan.
Sakshi Malik's Olympic bronze medal match
In the bronze medal match, Sakshi Malik’s defensive approach proved costly as Tynybekova raced to a comfortable 5-0 lead in the opening round. But Sakshi would then go on to stage one of the finest comebacks in Indian wrestling history.
Going for her opponent’s legs, Sakshi Malik inflicted a series of takedowns to rally into the bout and draw level at 5-5.
But Tynybekova still enjoyed an advantage on criteria after having scored with a 4-point takedown early in the bout.
However, with just seconds remaining in the match, Sakshi Malik would wriggle out of an attempted takedown to expose her opponent once again with a freak move to seal the bronze. A move that stunned herself and Tynybekova alike.
The Indian wrestler jumped with joy in the middle of the mat. Moments later Sakshi Malik was hauled up on the shoulders of her coach Kuldeep Malik while she carried an Indian flag over her to celebrate.
Sakshi Malik had become the first Indian woman wrestler to win a medal at the Olympics.
"That's the best feeling of any athlete," Sakshi said. "I got to wave the Indian flag at such a big stage - that was my proudest moment."
A nation comprising over a billion celebrated back home. Sakshi Malik in her moment, literally and figuratively, had been flying the flag for India at Rio 2016. She won the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna later in the year.