Rio 2016 Olympics |
Sakshi Malik has spent a major part of her 22 years living under the shadows of Geeta Phogat. It won’t be an exaggeration to call Phogats the first family of Indian women wrestling. The three sisters – Geeta, Babita and Vinesh – have been the pioneers. More so Geeta, who, in 2012, became the country’s first woman wrestler to win a world championship medal and qualify for the London Olympics. Their story has even inspired a Bollywood movie.Understandably, Sakshi and others in the 58kg category, which Geeta made her own, were perennially overshadowed by the star grappler.The 23-year-old stepped out of Geeta’s shadows to assert her position as one of the most promising wrestlers in the country by clinching a quota for the Rio Olympics in the last qualifying tournament, currently underway in Istanbul. She eventually settled for silver medal, but podium position was a mere formality.The Phogat family, in fact, would have experienced mixed emotions . It was a day when the eldest and most experienced of the three, Geeta, was dethroned as the queen of her category while the youngest, Vinesh, continued to impress.
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