Wrestler Sakshi Malik hands India its first medal at Rio Olympics

India has finally managed to open their medal account in the ongoing Rio Olympics as wrestler Sakshi Malik clinched a bronze in the women's freestyle 58kg event after defeating Asian No. 1 Aisuluu Tynybekova of Kyrgyztan 8-5 here on Thursday.

Although the 23-year-old was trailing 0-5 against her Kyrgyzstani opponent after the first period, she bounced back in style to hand India its fourth bronze medal in wrestling in the Olympic history.

Prior to this, Malik won her repechage round 2 bout by beating Mongolia's Purevdorj Orkhon 12-3 to advance to the bronze-medal match..

Malik had earlier suffered a major setback as she went down 2-9 against Russia's Valeriia Koblova in the quarter-finals of the event.

She, however, had brought herself back into the medal contention after her Russian opponent made it to the finals of the freestyle 58kg event.

With the win, Malik has now become only the fourth Indian woman athlete to win an Olympic medal after Karnam Malleshwari, Mary Kom and Saina Nehwal.

She has also become the fourth Indian wrestler to win a medal in Olympics after Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav,two-time Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar and Yogeshwar Dutt.