Yogeshwar Dutt walked into the Carioca arena as India’s final medal hope during a relatively underwhelming campaign. The 36-year old was nursing multiple knee injuries, but his willingness to win was as strong as four years back in London. However, things didn’t go as planned with a first round knockout to Mongolia’s Mandakhnaran Ganzorigiin. A week after the Haryana-based wrestler’s final Olympic bout, a pleasant consolation news has come his way. In all likelihood, 2012 London Olympic silver medal winner Russia’s Besik Kudukhov will be stripped of his achievement, after recently testing positive in his post-Olympic World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) sample.
The Russian passed away in a car accident in 2013 at the tender age of 27. However, due to Russia tryst with doping over the past year, United World Wrestling (UWW) decided to re-test the four time world champion’s London sample. The re-test was done for every participant as a part of the organiser’s standard procedure. The samples can be tested upto 10 years of being taken. Once Yogeshwar is announced as the silver medal winner, he will join an exclusive five member club of Sushil Kumar, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Vijay Kumar and PV Sindhu as India’s fifth individual silver medallist.
A source close to Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) added, “Five wrestlers from London have tested positive from the re-tests with the deadline bein 2017. We will test the samples again in 2017 before taking a final call on the matter. Another major name from London who failed the dope test is Uzbekistan’s Artur Tayazmov, in the 120 kg wrestler’s case his 2008 samples have also tested positive. If Kudukhov is confirmed in 2017, Yogeshwar will win silver as he lost his pre-quarter final bout to him.”
Despite his lost to the Russian, Yogeshwar charged through the repechage rounds defeating defeating Puerto Rico’s Franklin Gomez, Iran’s Masoud Esmaeilpour and North Korea’s Ri Jong Myong to win bronze. The bronze medal match victory has become an iconic moment for Indian sport. There is no word from the Yogeshwar camp regarding the matter yet.
