Commonwealth Games: Second successive gold medal for wrestler Bajrang Punia
The Indian wrestling contingent had a superb day on offer at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham on Friday. Bajrang Punia claimed his second successive CWG gold medal. In the men's freestyle 65kg final, Punia tamed Lachlan Maurice McNeil with a 9-2 win. Odunayo Folasade Adekuoroye beat Anshu Malik in women's 57kg final. The Indian settled for a silver. Here's more.
HATTRICK FOR BAJRANG AT CWG 🔥🔥🔥
— SAI Media (@Media_SAI) August 5, 2022
Tokyo Olympics 🥉medalist, 3 time World C'ships medalist @BajrangPunia is on winning streak 🔥🔥 to bag his 3rd consecutive medal at #CommonwealthGames 🥇 🥇🥈
Utter dominance by Bajrang (M-65kg) to win 🥇 #Cheer4India #India4CWG2022
1/1 pic.twitter.com/MmWqoV6jMw
Bajrang has now won two successive gold medals in the 65kg category, winning the top prize in Gold Coast four years ago. Prior to that, he won the silver medal in the 2014 event held in Glasgow (61kg category).
Besides his three CWG medals, Bajrang has bagged two medals at the Asian Games. He won the gold in 2018 Jakarta (65kg) and silver in 2014 Incheon (61kg). He has won eight medals at the Asian Championships, including two top prizes in 2017 and 2019. He has won a silver and two bronze medals at the World Championships as well.
At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Bajrang won a historic bronze medal. He defeated Daulet Niyazbekov of Kazakhstan (65kg) 8-0 to win the bronze medal match. He became the sixth Indian to win an Olympic medal in wrestling.
Bajrang has won two Commonwealth Championships gold medals. He has won a silver at the World U23 Championships in 2017. Earlier this year, he bagged a bronze at the 2022 Bolat Turlykhanov Cup.
In the first period, Bajrang was all over his opponent, racing to a 4-0 lead. McNeil made a comeback thereafter to make it 2-4. However, Bajrang stayed calm and dominated the scenes thereafter. In the semis, Bajrang defeated George Ramm of England 10-0. In his quarters clash, he had defeated Jean Guyliane Joris Bandou. In his opening bout, he defeated Naurau's Lowe Bingham.
