The Wrestling World Championships is scheduled on October 2 to 10 in Norway and Indian women wrestlers have reached Oslo unprepared for the marquee tournament. India has sent a 10-member team of women wrestlers and all of them will take the mat in Oslo without much sparring in recent times.
The Wrestling Federation of India continued its reluctant attitude towards the wrestlers as the federation had no idea about the preparations of the wrestlers. Apart from Sarita Mor (59kg) none of the selected wrestlers arrived at the national camp organized ahead of the tournament in New Delhi.
The WFI’s highly unprofessional approach saw the camp getting postponed twice. A camp that was originally scheduled on September 5 was postponed to September 15 and finally managed to begin on September 20 at the Indira Gandhi International Stadium in New Delhi.
Recently a WFI official spoke to Sportskeeda regarding the issues. He said, “Sarita did report for the camp but she returned to train at her own akhada after none of the other wrestlers reported at the camp.”
However WFI assistant secretary Vinod Thakur is pretty sure that the wrestlers are in pristine condition to compete for medals in their first big event since the Tokyo Olympics. “They had been training at their akhadas. It was anyway a 10-days camp, so I think even though they didn’t show up, they are ready for the world championships,” Thakur said.
India had big hopes from Wrestling at the Tokyo Olympics. Although they won two medals at the Summer Games, a lot more was expected from the talented contingent. While Ravi Dahiya showed tremendous determination and technical ability to reach the finals and bag a silver medal, an injured Bajrang Punia showed exceptional willpower and grit to fight it out on the mat and won the bronze medal for his nation. Deepak Punia came close as he was moments away from grabbing the bronze medal. However, apart from them, none of the wrestlers delivered. Vinesh Phogat had her issues but talented wrestlers like Sonam Malik, Anshu Malik and Seema Bisla hardly made any impact on the mat. Therefore after a below-par performance from the women wrestlers at the Summer Games, nothing has changed from WFI’s end.
