Sakshi Malik's Rio medal anniversary celebration creates controversy on Twitter

Earlier, on Wednesday, Indian freestyle wrestler Sakshi Malik had a lot to celebrate as it was the one-year anniversary of her bronze medal win at the Rio Olympics. She took to Twitter to express her happiness as she wrote: “One year of medal love. Today marks the one-year completion. Received lots of love and respect from you. Thanks to everyone.”

Most of India joined hands in congratulating her for her remarkable achievement at the Rio Games. After all, she was the first-ever Indian female wrestler to win a medal at the Olympics. In an otherwise disappointing campaign, her bronze medal win was one of the few bright spots for India in Rio.

However, not everyone reflects the same opinion. Reputed sports journalist Sukhwant Basra decided to tread a different path as he took the opportunity to point out how ace shooter and India’s only Olympic individual gold medallist, Abhinav Bindra, appeared to be the only athlete in the country who did not go ‘overboard about his win’.

Moments after this tweet from Basra, though, the Twitterati shredded him apart for his ignorance and apparent belittlement of the achievements of other Indian athletes.

Some of the users lambasted him for ‘discouraging’ the athletes. Others asked him to win an Olympic medal for the country before sharing his thoughts. One of the users pointed out that Basra was himself going overboard.

Even as Basra continuously kept on saying that it was his personal point of view and he meant no disrespect for Sakshi Malik, Twitter did not forgive him. Here are some of the tweets:

Even Olympic medallist Yogeshwar Dutt came out in support of Sakshi Malik. The wrestler posted a message on Twitter on how everyone had the right to express their thoughts. He wrote, “Everyone has their own point of view and only a few get the fruits of their lifetime's labour. The whole of India is proud of you Sakshi and the moments of victory shall be remembered forever.”

While it could be that Basra’s tweet was taken out of context and he had no intentions of belittling the achievements of any of the athletes, he probably could have avoided the entire saga by posting a milder tweet to express his point of view. However, in my opinion, just like Basra has the right to express his opinion, Sakhsi (or any other athlete for that matter) has the right to celebrate the anniversary of an Olympic medal win.