London: Indian grappler Sushil Kumar went down to Tatsuhiro Yonemitsu of Japan in the 66kg freestyle wrestling event of London Olympics at the Excel Centre here today. His silver medal winning feat has now seen India win six medals in London and sign off their campaign on a high note.
He lost to the Japanese wrestler in 1-3 to win the silver. Sushil who earlier entered the finals after beating Akzhurek Tanatarov of Kazakhstan has now become the first ever Indian to win back to back medals at the Olympics. He won a bronze in the Beijing Games.
Sushil lost the match 1-0, 3-1.
Earlier in the day, Akzhurek Tanatarov of Kazakhstan to reach the finals.
Sushil in the match looked focused from the first minute and won the first round 3-0. In the second round Tanatarov came back strongly to take the round 3-0 into the third round. In the deciding round Tanatarov took the lead with less than a minute to go and it looked that Sushil will have to fight for bronze. But the grappler from Delhi turned the match on its head and took 5-3 lead. He got one more point to win the final round 6-3, leaving his opponent in blood and tears.
In the quarterfinals Sushil defeated Ikhtiyor Navruzov of Uzbekistan 3-1 to reach his first semifinals of the Olympics. Sushil earlier defeated defending champion Ramazan Sahin of Turkey to advance to the quarters.
Sushil in the match came back from behind to beat the Beijing gold medallist. Both the grapplers won one round each to take the match into the deciding round. Sushil took the all important point to seal the victory.
By Indian Sports News Network
