Aman Sehrawat won bronze in the men's 57kg freestyle wrestling after a 13-5 win over Puerto Rico's Darian Toi Cruz on Friday night.
This was India's first wrestling medal of the Paris Games and the sixth overall.
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The bout went from one opponent to the other before Aman took control and closed it convincingly.
Cruz picked up the first point within the opening 30 seconds after he couldn't quite make an attacking move stick for a takedown, but pushed Aman out of the mat. However, the Indian came back in the next sequence with a takedown that gave him two points for the lead in the bout.
The first round was a high-scoring affair, which ended with Aman claiming two separate takedowns, one with just a second left on the clock, as the Indian went into the midway point with a 6-3 advantage.
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Cruz took the first points of the second period as well with a two-point takedown, but Aman once again wasted no time in coming back with a takedown of his own, and then followed it up with another, as he took a five-point lead with just a minute to go. He extended that lead with a stunning reversal and counterattack that gave him two points more, to effectively close the bout out with 37 seconds left on the clock.
Aman started his campaign on Thursday with two wins on technical superiority over North Macedonia's Vladimir Egorov and Albania's Zelimkhan Abakarov. In the semifinal, Aman lost on technical superiority to Japanese top seed Rei Higuchi.
This is India's eighth medal in wrestling at the Olympics, following KD Jadhav in 1952, Sushil Kumar in 2008 and 2012, Yogeshwar Dutt in 2012, Sakshi Malik in 2016, Bajrang Punia in 2021 and Ravi Kumar Dahiya in 2021. It also kept a proud streak going, with this being the fifth straight Olympics in which an Indian has won a medal in wrestling.
With just one more potential medal event remaining (barring a miracle in the final golf round on Saturday), India can now only match their total medal tally from the Tokyo Olympics.