India’s Aman overcomes Cruz to secure India’s sixth medal
An extremely young 21-year-old wrestler, Aman Sehrawat, is mature beyond his years. He has risen from the ashes.
He was orphaned at the age of eleven when both his parents died. His mother committed suicide after a long battle with mental illness while his father followed suit shortly afterwards. Consequently, he tried depression and drugs to help forget his sorrows.
This placed him in a dark place where his uncle Sudhir Sehrawat came to the rescue. The uncle encouraged his nephew to focus on wrestling and this would prevent any kind of negative thoughts from clouding his mind. His grandfather Mangeram also incited him towards this direction.
Aman had just joined Chhatrasal Stadium in Delhi two years earlier after taking inspiration from Olympian Sushil Kumar before his father passed away, and with the uncle now holding hands with him, life changed for good; Aman found solace on mat and developed purposefulness for himself; he adopted steady growth, made landmarks and became the first Indian ever to win a gold medal at U-23 World Wrestling Championship that made newspaper headlines.
On Friday evening at an impromptu arena adjacent to Eiffel Tower called Champs de Mars stadium. Darian Cruz of Puerto Rico took on Aman in the 57kg freestyle bronze medal match – the same weight category Ravi Dahiya won silver for India in Tokyo.
A three-time medallist at Pan American Games and seasoned 29-year old rival Darian was dominated by Aman throughout their contest thereby making it comfortably easy for him as he won by 13-5 following up on initial fight period victory. He thus saved India from disaster by winning bronze. The country collected its fifth medal here.
Cruz gained advantage during the first round. When he seized one of Aman’s legs and pushed him out of the orange circle 1-0. Aman made a quick response to this by putting Cruz’s back on the floor which saw him taking the lead 2-1. Cruz, in turn, returned the favour to take his tally to three points 3-2.
At this stage it was too close to call but Aman started growing in confidence and really going for it more, attacking Cruz’s legs just so that he could harvest some vital points. This he did in the middle of that period for two more points from which he obtained a 4-3 lead. Puerto Rico now seemed tired as with seconds left before the hooter sounded, Aman got hold of Cruz. Who dropped down rather than being take down totally making Aman be ahead 6-3.
When Cruz returned into the second period he had determined before getting two scores; hence Aman was then only one point ahead at 6-5. That could have gone either way but Aman wasn’t giving up. He scored two points and went into an advantage of three scores leading by 8-5. Thus there were just two minutes left for final hooter. It looked like he had everything under control.
Cruz signaled for time-out as he pointed towards his left knee at this point; trying to regain his breath from India’s young opponent. After medical assistance provided to him, however, Cruz looked drained off energy when returning onto mat. Aiming to finish him off fast enough, Aman noticed this and straightaway made an attack grabbing his leg forcing him downwards before sitting upon his rival so as to get two points.
With 1 minute and 7 seconds remaining, the score was 10-5. It became a 12-5 game just 45 seconds before the end. Cruz won’t make it back. Aman picked up another point to win easily and ran to his coach in celebration of winning his medal.
Aman hails from Birohar village in Jhajjar district of Haryana where he had interest in mud wrestling as a child. This changed his life when he made transition to mat.
The only Indian wrestler featuring in men’s section at these games. Sehrawat had an impressive outing on Thursday here with a couple of big wins taking him through to the pre-quarterfinals and quarterfinals of the 57kg freestyle.
Sehrawat was now up against Zelimkhan Abakarov of Albania in quarterfinals. As two periods rolled over, the final verdict ended in favor of India’s Sehrawat by 12-0 after he scored some vital points. He’d lost to Akabarov at the senior World Championships.
Although Aman was beat by a Japanese opponent in the penultimate round. He came back fighting for bronze on Friday; he wanted it more than anything else though; He simply outclassed him
Even though Vinesh’s disqualification left India’s wrestling contingent shocked. This medal will serve as some consolation to them; It acted as a much-needed salve.
