Wrestling with expectations

CHENNAI :  India’s wrestling contingent came out with flying colours at Gold Coast. But there is no time to rest. In three and a half months, they will be facing stronger opponents at the Asian Games in Jakarta. And when it comes to slightly more competitive tournaments, India’s record recently has been poor. During the World Championships last year, none of them managed to win a medal. Two years ago in Rio, Sakshi Malik’s bronze was the only consolation. 

Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat are two of the country’s brightest prospects ahead of the showdown in Jakarta. Both of them struck gold in Australia. But in Jakarta, they will wrestle against stronger opponents from the likes of Japan, Mongolia and Kazakhstan. Whether they can repeat the same feat again is doubtful and women’s national coach Kuldeep Malik agrees. “Vinesh is a great wrestler and there is a lot of hope on her for the Asian Games. But some of the athletes in Jakarta will be superior. Their genes and physicality cannot be matched. It’s something that they have naturally. It will very tough for us. But let us not forget that we have won medals in the past. Whether we can better the number of medals, I cannot say now. But we have hope,” he told Express.

In Gold Coast, both men and women together won 12 medals and out of them, five were gold. Four years ago at the Asian Games in Incheon, India could only manage five with just one gold. That’s not even half of what they won in the last few weeks. Among those who won, two medallists were Yogeshwar Dutt and Narsingh Yadav. While Yogeshwar is no longer in the picture, Narsingh’s battle against dope accusations is still going on in the court. 

There are doubts over whether Sushil Kumar will participate. In that case, Bajrang will be the man in focus. In the women’s category, Sakshi Malik has not been able to recapture her Rio form and confidence. 
So, there is a lot of pressure on Vinesh to deliver as well. However, the men’s national coach Jagminder Singh is little more upbeat. “I would never say that anybody is superior to us. We are all good in our own ways. If you see athletics, they will perform better in Asian Games because many countries like Australia, England and African countries don’t participate there. For each discipline, there are certain tournaments that will be easy and some that are not. Our athletes had a great outing in the Asian Championships in Delhi last year. Some of the teams that will participate in Jakarta were in Delhi too. Bajrang is one of our finest wrestlers and I am sure that we will have a similar medal haul,” Jagminder said.

The men’s team have already scheduled their preparations for the Asian Games. There will be an initial camp starting May 1 in Sonepat. They have also planned trips to either Bulgaria or Spain before August. 
“After resting for 10-12 days, we will start again. We haven’t decided which tournament (Bulgaria/Spain) we will go to. But we will make sure our athletes are ready before going to Jakarta,” Jagminder concluded.
vimalsankar@newindianexpress.com