India made history in wrestling after a gap of 42 years, when Ramesh Kumar won bronze medal in the freestyle 74 kg category in the prestigious World Wrestling Championship.

The Indian Railways wrestler clinched India’s first medal in the prestigious event by defeating Alexandr Burca of Moldova on technical points, after the repechage round ended with both the wrestlers tied at the score of 7-7 on Wednesday night.

Kumar started the bout on a disappointing note, trailing 0-3 after the first period.

Kumar had earlier defeated Dustin Schlatter of the US 3-2 in the opening round. He next overcame Great Britain’s Michael Grundy, and beat Kiril Terziev of Bulgaria 7-4 in the quarterfinal.

Kumar lost out on the gold medal opportunity going down 0-5 to Chamsulvara Chamsulvarayev of Azerbaijan.

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Arjuna Awards 2008 Winners, Khel Ratna, Dronacharya Winners 2008

List of awardees:

Rajiv Khel Ratna:

Sushil Kumar (wrestling)

Arjuna Award:

Mangal Singh Champia (archery), Surinder Kaur (hockey)

Dronacharya Award:

 Jaidev Bisht (boxing)