Paris Olympics 2024: Who are India's medal contenders today August 9 (Day 14)?

Aman Sehrawat will contest for bronze medal on Friday.

Team India finally broke their one-week medal drought at Paris Olympics 2024 with the Indian men’s hockey team beating Spain 2-1 in the bronze medal match. Neeraj Chopra then went ahead and added a first silver to the nation’s medal tally taking the total to five medals. With the Paris Olympics entering its business end, India will hope to quickly add few more medals to their tally to take it past Tokyo 2020’s numbers.

It was an emotional game for the Indian men’s hockey team with the side giving a fitting farewell to legendary goalkeeper PR Sreejesh who announced international retirement. It wasn’t an easy win as Spain took the lead early on. Harmanpreet Singh played the captain’s role to perfection and scored two goals to help the team take the lead.

Eventually, it was down to Sreejesh and the defence in the final few minutes to hold on to the one-goal lead and ensure the goalkeeping great finished off his international career with a bronze medal. It is a historic win as India won back-to-back Olympic medals in hockey after 52 years.

However, Neeraj Chopra failed to defend his gold medal in the men’s javelin throw with Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan bagging the top honour with a new Olympic record distance of 92.97m. Chopra claimed the silver medal with a throw of 89.45m. India would want to continue the rush of medals and add more to the tally on Friday (August 9).

Also Read: Paris Olympics 2024: India schedule for today Day 14 (August 9)

India’s medal contenders on Day 14 (August 9) in Paris Olympics 2024

Wrestling – Men’s freestyle 57kg – Aman Sehrawat – Bronze medal match

With so much drama outside the wrestling mat for India, Aman Sehrawat has brought the action back to the mat with dominating performances. Being the only male wrestler in the Indian contingent, Aman competed in the men’s freestyle 57kg category. The 21-year-old took on North Macedonia’s Vladimir Egorov in the Round of 16. It was an easy win as he took four minutes to finish the game.

Also Read: Paris Olympics 2024: Aman Sehrawat to play for bronze after semi-final loses, Anshu Malik out of medal contention

The quarterfinals had a tougher challenge as he was asked to overcome Albania’s Zelimkhan Abakarove. The Albabian had a wealth of experience and won the World Championship 2022. But the Indian youngster was technically superior in getting the win and moving into the semis. But he lost to the top-seeded Higuchi Rei in the last four.

Although he has missed qualifying for the finals, he made it to the bronze medal match and will take on Puerto Rico’s Cruz Darian who qualified through the repechage. With all the fiasco with the Vinesh Phogat episode, the focus will be on the weigh-in of Aman. Indians will hope to see Aman finally break the wrestling medal jinx in Paris.

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