Bronze medallist Sakshi Malik is on cloud nine after becoming the first Indian woman wrestler to win an Olympic medal, but she still has her feet firmly on the ground. "I have much to learn; I've only just about begun grasping the nuances of wrestling," she tells Indraneel Das, Sports Editor, TNIE, in an interview at Rio.
In her bronze-medal match, after trailing 0-5, in the last 90 seconds, she grabbed the Kyrgyz wrestler from behind and turned her for two points. At the stroke of fourth minute, she managed to square it off. But the clock was ticking and she knew she needed a point. “I was telling myself this medal is mine and I will not let it slip,” she said with tears in her eyes. “Even when I was trailing I had belief.”
And that belief is what has driven her in the past 11-12 years that she has been training, despite a late start at wrestling at the age of 12 or 13. "No one put any pressure on me, and that worked well," she says.
Listen to the entire revealing interview with wrestling star Sakshi Malik, as she recounts her journey till now, how her daily training regimes shaped her and more.