Sakshi Malik wins bronze to hand India first Rio medal

Sakshi Malik ended India's painful wait for a medal at the Rio Olympic Games by clinching the bronze in the 58kg category

The 23-year-old from Rohtak became only the fourth woman athlete from India to win an Olympic medal

She earned the dramatic win after falling behind 0-5 in the do-or-die bout against Aisuluu Tynybekova of Kyrgyzstan

Sakshi made a sensational comeback and pulled off a sensational 8-5 victory over Tynybekova

Sakshi turned the tables on the Kyrgyzstan wrestler in the dying seconds of the bout as Tynybekova was in complete command in most part of the clash

She had earlier stormed into the bronze medal play-off round with a dominating performance in her repechage round, where she beat Purevdorjiin Orkhon of Mongolia 12-3

Both the wrestlers matched each other in the first period and the scores were 2-2 at the break

She, in fact, had lost 2-9 in the quarter-finals to Russia's Valeriia Koblova in the fifth bout of the day

But she got a second chance in repechage when her conqueror reached the final

In the pre-quarters, she had eked out a narrow 5-5 win over Mariana Cherdivara Esanu of Republic of Moldova

Making a strong comeback from a 0-4 down, Sakshi defeated Sweden's Malin Johanna Mattsson 5-4 in the qualification round