Just a few days after coming back empty handed from Rio Olympics 2016, the Indian wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt is set to get the biggest surprise of his life as the Bronze medal which he won in 2012 London Olympics is set to go Silver as reports suggest that the dope test of Russia’s Besik Kudukhov (Yogeshwar’s opponent for silver in 2012) has been found positive for banned substance. So he will be ripped off of the silver medal which means that Yogeshwar will get a promotion.
“The samples of five wrestlers, including Russia’s Besik Kudukhov (60 kg) and Uzbekistan’s Artur Taymazov’s (120 kg), have tested positive for banned substances. Kudukhov failed a dope test in re-tests of samples collected during the London Games. In Taymazov’s case, the re-tests date back to samples collected from the Beijing Games (2008). Kudukhov is a silver medallist and Taymazon a gold-medal winner. They will lose their medals. With Kudukhov testing positive, Yogeshwar Dutt of India will get the silver,” sources in United World Wrestling (UWW), the governing body, told The Indian Express.
Kudukhov died in a car accident in the year 2013, a year after winning the silver medal. He was just 27 years old then.
His sampled were retested by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) before Rio Olympics which was collected during the London Games. The samples were found positive.
After an official announcement by the Olympics committee, Yogeshwar will become second Indian wrestler to win a Silver medal in wrestling, Sushil being the first one who won the silver medal in London 2012. He also won a bronze medal in Beijing.
Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav was the first Indian wrestler to win an Olympics medal; he won the Bronze medal at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. He was one of the first athletes from India to win a medal in the Olympics.
Surely the pain of Rio Olympic will be blunted if Yogeshwar if crowned with the silver medal.