Sakshi Malik names daughter, inspired by Japanese legend

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Sakshi Sakshi Malik during a training session. (FILE PHOTO)

India’s celebrated Olympic medallist in women’s wrestling, Sakshi Malik, in a social media post, revealed that she has named her daughter Yoshida, after legendary Japanese Saori Yoshida.

The 42-year-old Japanese was the sport’s most dominant juggernaut starting 1998, and won three Olympic golds at Athens, Beijing and London in 55 kg division. She would have won a fourth at Rio, but lost the final to take home silver in reclassified 53kg.

With Yoshida visiting the Inspire Institute in Karnataka, for a coaching camp, Sakshi uploaded a clip of her conversation with the legend on Insta. “I’m very happy to see you in India. You are an inspiration for everyone, all girls in India,” Sakshi is heard saying.

“My daughter is 8 months old and her name is Yoshida. Named after my inspiration Saori Yoshida,” she proceeds to narrate in the reel.

Yoshida had a staggering run at the World Championships where she was undefeated from Chalkida in 2002 to Las Vegas in 2015, winning at every edition in between. There are golds from New York in ’03, Budapest in ‘O5, Guangzhou in ’06, Baku in ’07, Tokyo in ’08, Herning in ’09, Moscow in ’10, Istanbul in ’11, Edmonton in ’12, Budapest in ’13 and Tashkent in ’14 besides.

In 2007, Yoshida was the first woman to be awarded Japanese Athlete of the Year, pointing to her immense inspiration. She remained at 55kg competition weight for 12 years, before dropping to 53 after Olympics shuffled the weight categories.

Sakshi promised she would be back on the mat and training after a year after she was told, “I remember watching you in 2016 Olympics.”

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“My baby is very young, After 1 year I will again join camps,” she promised.

The legend Yoshida’s only loss came at the Rio Games against Helen Maroulis. It’s akin to Vinesh Phogat inflicting a rare defeat on Yui Susaki at the Paris Olympics, for Japanese women’s wrestling has long streaks of dominance. Susaki went 95 matches without losing to non Japanese. Yoshida faced her first defeat in her 89th match. And just like her, Yoshida was a global inspiration for every female wrestler.

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