The girls who ruled their races at Rio

#7 Monica Puig

Monica Puig was the unlikely winner in the Women’s singles event

#PicaPower began trending on Twitter as the world could not stop celebrating Puerto Rico’s first ever Olympic Gold medal, which was won by the unseeded Monica Puig. She also became the first unseeded women’s singles gold medalist since the return of tennis to the Olympics in 1988. She defeated the World No.2 Angelique Kerber from Germany in one of the most surprising Olympic tennis finals.

She also became the second unseeded player to win a medal at the Olympics after Alicia Molik won bronze in Athens. Puig who has never made it past the round of 16 at any major tournament but she left no stone unturned to create history at Rio and we all hope to see more of her.

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#8 Sakshi Mallik

Sakshi became the first Indian women wrestler to win a medal at the Olympics

Sakshi was announced the brand ambassador of the ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ campaign in Haryana by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar after she won India’s first medal at the Rio Olympics. She became the first Indian woman to win a medal at the Olympics in wrestling. Sakshi has been trained in such a way where she had to fight a lot of boys because the sport was not supposed to be ‘for girls’. But her willpower kept her going despite all the negatives.

People in her village teased her saying the sport would give her ‘cauliflower ears’ and no one would marry her. And because of all these gossips, her parents were hesitant at one point in the beginning. Even her coach had to face protests after he took Sakshi under his guidance. Her performance at Rio was a slap on the faces of those who still think girls are not self-sufficient to go out and fulfil their dreams.