Yogeshwar Dutt finally realises his dream

• Third Indian wrestler to win a medal after K.D. Jadhav and Sushil Kumar
• Wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt clinched the bronze medal in the men’s 60 kg freestyle category winning three rounds of repechage after losing to four-time world champion Besik Kudukhov of Russia in the pre-quarterfinals, at the ExCel Arena on Saturday.
• It was a brilliant performance by Yogeshwar, who had made the quarterfinals of the last edition in Beijing. He followed Sushil Kumar in winning the Olympic bronze medal. It was the third medal from wrestling for an Indian in the Olympics as K. D. Jadhav had won it in 1952.
• To win three bouts in the repechage within an hour was a tough task in itself, and the 29-year-old accomplished it with a touch of class, as he rolled the Korean semifinalist, Ri Jong Myong on the mat to win 6-0 points in the decisive third period of the bronze medal contest.
• It was the Korean who had won the first period as he pushed the Indian off the mat.
• In the second period, Yogeshwar won the crucial point in the first minute and held on to the advantage to force the decider. There were no points for about 40 seconds and Yogeshwar put the opponent down for the first point and just rolled him around to force the referee to stop the bout as he reached six points.
• The Korean was the Asian championship bronze medallist, and not a big issue for Yogeshwar Dutt who had earlier got past the world championship silver medallist Franklin Gomez Matos of Puerto Rico in the first round of repechage by not conceding a point in the two periods. Both the times he scored the point in the ‘clinch’.