PARIS: USA wrestler Sarah Hildebrandt secured the gold medal in the women’s 50 kg freestyle wrestling after defeating Cuba’s Yusneylis Guzman Lopez at the ongoing Paris Olympics.
India’s Vinesh Phogat was originally supposed to wrestle for the top prize. In a big blow to India’s medal hopes from the wrestling arena, the grappler was disqualified from the 50 kg women’s wrestling event for breaching the weight mark.
Vinesh was scheduled to take on the United States’s Sarah. After her disqualification, Vinesh announced her retirement from wrestling on Thursday. Notably, Vinesh had entered the finals by defeating Lopez in the semifinals on Tuesday.
After Sarah won, she looked at the crowd and mouthed, as quoted by Olympics.com, “I just won the Olympics!”. The USA wrestler had suffered a defeat in the semifinals of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and had to settle for a bronze.
After Amit Elor’s gold medal in 68 kg on Tuesday, this is the second women’s wrestling gold for America at the Paris Olympics.
“It just speaks volumes to these women, our coaches and the people around us, and their investment in women’s sports. You can see it in somebody like Amit Elor, who is just so young and so talented, and so sure of what she is doing. It is super cool, and that just feeds everything. She feeds it to me, and I am 10 years older than her. The environment is really growing, and the belief is building and building,” she added.
Susaki Yui of Japan outclassed Ukraine’s Oksana Livachby technical superiority, 10-0, in the bronze medal match A. China’s Feng Ziqi defeated Otgonjargal Dolgorjav of Mongolia 6-0 in the bronze medal match B.
India has so far won three bronze medals at the Paris Olympics and all of these came from shooting. India had the chance to win more medals but failed to clinch after finishing at the fourth place in 10m air rifle, 25m pistol, skeet team, badminton singles and mixed archery team events. (ANI)