India’s Ramesh Kumar created history by winning the bronze medal in the freestyle 74kg category at the World Wrestling Championship in Herning, Denmark.
The Uttar Pradesh wrestler did what Beijing Olympic bronze medallist Sushil Kumar failed to achieve, clinching India’s first medal in the prestigious event after a gap of 32 years.
Kumar defeated Alexandr Burca of Moldova on technical points after the last round ended with both the wrestlers tied at the score of 7—7 on Wednesday night.
Kumar, however, started the bout on a disappointing note, trailing 0-3 after the first period.
He then came back strongly in the second session to score two points and then finished off the final period picking up five points as against his opponent’s four to finally come out victorious on technical points.
Kumar had earlier defeated Dustin Schlatter of the US 3-2 in the opening round. His next casualty was Great Britain’s Michael Grundy, whom he beat 4-2 and then prevailed over Kiril Terziev of Bulgaria 7-4 in the quarterfinal.
