Tokyo, Aug 4 Indian grappler Ravi Kumar Dahiya assured India of at least a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics when he stormed into the men's 57kg freestyle final with a 'victory by fall' over Kazakhstan's Nurislam Sanayev in the semifinal on Wednesday.
Dahiya became only the second Indian wrestler in history after Sushil Kumar who had entered the 2012 London Olympics final but ended up winning silver to make it to the title round at the quadrennial showpiece.
The Indian wrestler, who is making his Olympic debut, will face Russian Olympic Committee's (ROC) Zavur Uguev a two-time world champion in the final.
In what was a tight start to the contest at the Makuhari Messe Hall in Chiba, Dahiya conceded the first points due to a passivity call but roared back instantly with a two-point take down.
Leading 2-1 heading into the second period, Dahiya was dealt a huge blow after the action restarted, when Sanayev got behind the Indian, caught hold of his ankles and twirled him around a few times to flip the score 9-2 in his favour.
Desperately looking to turn things around, Dahiya made a brilliant comeback by first managing to push Sanayev out of bounds to reduce the deficit to 9-5. The move apparently injured theKazakh wrestler, but he decided to continue.
With just 50 seconds left on the clock, Dahiya scored a two-point takedown and converted it to a pin exposing both his opponent's shoulders to the mat and won the bout by fall.
Earlier, Dahiya had entered the semifinals after beating Bulgaria's Georgi Vangelov in the quarterfinals (14-4) and Colombia's Oscar Tigreros in the round of 16 (13-2) by technical superiority.
In wrestling, building up a 10-point lead over the opponent results in a victory by technical superiority.
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