Rio will be my last Olympics: Yogeshwar Dutt
Indian wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt has said that Rio would be his last Olympics and he wanted to end it with a gold medal. However, he made it clear that if his body permits, he would take part in Asian and Commonwealth Games. He said he was planning to go to either USA or Russia to train himself for the Olympic qualifiers in March 2016.
Yogeshwar Dutt is an Indian wrestler known as Yogi among his followers. He was born on 2 November 1982 in a Gaur Brahmin family in Haryana. He started wrestling at the age of 8 years and was trained under coach Ralph. He was awarded with Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award in 2012 and the Padma Shri in the year 2013.
Yogeshwar Dutt won the bronze medal in the 60kg freestyle category by defeating Ri Jong Myong of North Korea at the London Olympics. He said he had dedicated 21 years to the sport and it was the biggest day of his life. He became the third Indian to win an Olympic medal in wrestling after K D Jadhav (1952) and Sushil Kumar (2008).
Yogeshwar Dutt won the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games 2014 held in Glasgow, Scotland. He was competing in the men's freestyle 65kg category against Jevon Balfour of Canada. Yogeshwar was declared the winner on grounds of technical superiority after he took a 10-0 lead within 1.53 minutes of the first round. It was the fourth gold medal in wrestling for India in 2014.
Ending India's 28 year drought for gold in Asian Games wrestling, Dutt defeated Zalimkhan Yusupov of Tajikistan in men's 65kg freestyle in the 17th Asian Games. He defeated Zalimkhan by 3-0 in the second round. India's last wrestling gold in Asian games was won by Kartar Singh in 1986. He dedicated his gold medal to his father saying he owed it to him.
Dutt said that he was very injury-prone and recently sustained a knee injury. He had a lot of operations in the past and his concern was to stay fit and injury free for Rio Olympics. He said that he was confident that an early qualification in Rio Olympics would give him enough time to work on increasing his stamina.
Yogeshwar Dutt has won 3 gold and 2 silver medals for India at Commonwealth Wrestling Championship, 2 gold at Commonwealth Games, 1 gold at Asian Wrestling Championship, 1 gold and 1 bronze at Asian Games and 1 bronze at the Olympic Games.
