Bajrang Punia’s father Balwan Singh revealed that his son was carrying a knee injury during his semi-final match.

It was heartbreaking for Bajrang Punia when he lost the semi-final of Men’s 65 kg wrestling to three-time world-champion Haji Aliev on Friday. Bajrang’s father, Balwan Singh revealed that his son was carrying a knee injury during his semi-final match and that is what did not allow him to play attack – something he is known for.

“Due to knee injury he (Bajrang Punia) was not able to perform attacking wrestling (y’day), which he is known for. We talked over phone early morning& I told him to give his best today (match for Bronze medal),” Punia‘s father, Balwan Singh told ANI.

Today, he won yet another Olympic medal for India in a dominant display against Kazhakstan’s Daulet Niyazbekov 8-0. The Kazakh began the bout on a detached note, adapting a latency penalty inside the initial two minutes and gave Bajrang Punia the first point of the match. Niyazbekov before long began playing on the offense, yet the Indian by one way or another figured out how to obstruct of the assault and pushed his adversary out of the mat to lead 2-0 toward the finish of the first round.

Bajrang Punia went to his standard attacking self for which he is known in the second round and, however, Niyazbekov continued searching for the non-existent counter and got himself 4-0 down with a little more than a minute in the session. Longing to open his record, the Kazakh went for a free assault and Bajrang hooked on to the chance to stretch out his lead to 6-0 and afterward to 8-0 with only 20 seconds remaining. While Daulet Niyazbekov tried to attack in the final 20 seconds, the Indian defended well to take the bronze medal with an 8-0 win.

With this bronze medal, India got its second medal in wrestling, proving to always be of immense importance in India’s Olympic endeavor.