India’s star female wrestler Sakshi Malik created history in the Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022. She won the gold medal in women’s 62 kg freestyle wrestling. The Indian wrestler won her first gold at the Commonwealth Games by defeating Ana Godinez of Canada, while this is India’s 8th overall gold in this Mahakumbh.
The Rio Olympics bronze medalist had earlier won bronze medals in Commonwealth Games 2014 and 2018. This time he changed the color of his medal and thus now his name has become 3 medals in this game. In this way, India’s star wrestlers and Olympic medalists Bajrang Punia and Sakshi Malik gave India a golden start in the Commonwealth Games wrestling event on Friday, while Anshu Malik got a silver medal on debut.
Olympic bronze medalist Sakshi Malik advanced to the final with a technical superiority 10-0 win over Cameroon’s Berthe Emiliene Itane Ngole in the last four.
Sakshi also won the quarterfinals by technical superiority. She defeated Kelsey Barnes of hosts England in this opening match. Defending champion Bajrang reached the semi-finals with a 6-0 victory over Mauritius’ Jean-Gulienne Joris Bandou in just a minute. It took them less than two minutes to reach the quarterfinals to register an easy 4–0 win over Nauru’s Lowe Bingham in the opening round. Bajrang took a minute to grasp his opponent and then ended the bout by suddenly slamming Bigham out of a ‘clapping’ position.
Bingham did not realize this sudden bet and the Indian wrestler easily won. Anshu lost to Nigeria’s Odunayo Folasade Edukuroye 3-7 in the final. Anshu dominated every match before this. She registered technical superiority (10-0) victories over Australia’s Irene Simionidis in the quarterfinals and Nethmi Poruthotage of Sri Lanka in the semifinals.