London: India’s Yogeshwar Dutt defeated Korea DPR’s Jong Myong Ri in the third round of repechage to claim bronze in the 60kg wrestling competition on the penultimate day of the 2012 London Olympics. It was a stunning turnaround in fortunes for the Indian wrestler on Saturday, who won his fifth bout of the day to give India its fifth medal of the Games.
The Korean wrestler took the first period 1-0, but Dutt took the second by the same score line before taking the final period 6-0 to win.
The 11th day of the Olympics began with Yogeshwar beating Bulgaria's Anatolie llarionovitch Guidea in the qualification. He then lost to Russia's Besik Kudukhov in the pre-quarterfinals, but his Olympic medal hopes were kept alive when he qualified for the repechage round after Kudukhov, the bronze medalist at the 2008 Beijing Games, won his quarter-final match 3-1 against Iran’s Masoud Esmaeilpoorjouybari and semi-final 3-0 against Myong Ri to qualify for the final.
In the first round of repechage Yogeshwar defeated Puerto Rico's Franklin Gomez Matos, the world No. 2, and in the second he beat Esmaeilpoorjouybari.
It was India's third wrestling medal at the Olympics after Kashaba Jadhav's bronze in the 1952 Helsinki Games and a similar feat by Sushil Kumar four years ago in Beijing. Dutt, who had narrowly missed the bronze at Beijing, had to fight five bouts on a single day to clinch the bronze.
Yogeshwar's stupendous show lit up a gloomy day for India at the Games after its men's hockey team finished 12th and last in the competition, which ended with a 2-3 loss to South Africa in the classification match, and Basanta Bahadur Rana set a national mark but ended up 36th in 50km race walk.
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