‘I can sleep in peace now’

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Yogeshwar Dutt

After the disappointment of the Beijing Games, Yogeshwar Dutt spent sleepless nights waiting for a chance to add an Olympic medal to his trophy cabinet.

Four years after, at the Excel Arena in London, he realised his dreams with a bronze.
The star grappler — who along with friend and silver medal winner Sushil Kumar returned to a rousing homecoming on Tuesday — says he will now be able to sleep well.
“For the last four years, I used to wake up with the dream of winning a medal at the Olympics and I am thankful that God has been kind to me this time around. I can now enjoy a sound sleep,” Yogeshwar said.
In Beijing, the 2010 Commonwealth Games gold medallist lost his quarter-final to Kenichi Yumoto of Japan and his fears almost came true this time around as he lost to Russia’s Besik Kudukhov in the pre-quarter-final before coming back strongly in the repechage round.
“The loss to Kudukhov was very disturbing. I had put in a lot of hard work to reach the Olympics this time and did not want to return empty-handed. But I knew the Russian could make it to the finals and I started gearing up for the repechage without wasting much of a time thinking about the loss,” said the 29-year-old from his village, Bhainswal Kalan in Haryana’s Sonepat district.
Yogeshwar saw off Puerto Rico’s Franklin Gomez Matos 3-0 in the first bout of the repechage round before overcoming Masoud Esmaeilpoorjouybari of Iran 3-1 in the next.
He then defeated Jong Myong Ri of North Korea 3-1 to bag the elusive medal.
The grappler conceded that there was a lot of pressure on him particularly after losing the pre-quarter-final.
On his plans, Yogeshwar said, “Now the focus shifts to the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Scotland and the Asian Games in Incheon and if all goes well, I will be eyeing a gold at the Rio Olympics.”