Sumit Malik becomes 7th Indian wrestler to qualify for Tokyo Olympics
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New Delhi, May 7: Joining the elite club of Indian wrestlers for the Tokyo Olympics, Sumit Malik has also booked a berth in the upcoming Tokyo Olympics after making it to the finals in the 125kg freestyle category of the World Wrestling Qualifier in Sofia, Bulgaria.
SAI took to Twitter to applaud the wrestler. "Sumit qualifies for Olympics! Many congratulations to Sumit Malik as he qualifies for #Tokyo2020 in men's 125 kg freestyle wrestling after reaching the final at the World Qualifier in Sofia. He becomes the 4th male and 7th overall wrestler to qualify."
Sumit joins the elite company of Ravi Kumar Dahiya (57kg), Bajrang Punia (65kg) and Deepak Punia (86kg) in men's freestyle and Vinesh Phogat (53kg), Anshu Malik (57kg) and Sonam Malik (62kg) in women weights for those who have qualified for the Olympics.
In order to win the gold, Malik has to defeat Russian wrestler Sergei Kozyrev. Earlier, he beat Aiaal Lazarev of Kyrgyzstan and Alexandr Romanov of Moldova to make it to the quarterfinals. There he beat Rustam Iskandari of Tajikistan 10-5 to reach the semi-finals. In the semis, he defeated Jose Diaz Robertti of Venezuela 5-0 to reach the final.
Meanwhile, in a major development, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Thursday announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Pfizer Inc. and its partner BioNTech SE to donate doses of their COVID-19 vaccine to Games participants from National Olympic and Paralympic Committees around the world.