Sushil-Narsingh bullfight hurting other wrestlers

Sabi Hussain

TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

New Delhi, may 28

The courtroom battle between Sushil Kumar and the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) is taking its toll on the other Rio-bound wrestlers.

While Sushil’s case in the Delhi High Court for conducting a selection trial against Narsingh Yadav has been lingering on, it is the other seven grapplers (men and women) whose preparation have been put on hold.

Their training-cum-competition trip to Spala in Poland has been withheld by the WFI till the High Court pronounces its verdict in Kumar’s case. While the Rio-bound wrestlers have been left to practise at the SAI's Centre in Sonepat, the WFI has concentrated all its energy to fight the legal battle against Sushil, robbing the grapplers of all important foreign exposure trip.

The Poland trip was organised in a hurry by the WFI only a few days back when Belarus refused to host the Indian wrestling team in their capital city of Minsk. It has to be mentioned here that the Minsk wrestling arena is the same where Indian wrestlers had a 21-day training stint before the London Olympics.

Both Kumar and Yogeshwar Dutt, winners at London Olympics, did acknowledge after the Games that it was their stint in Belarus which helped them reach their peak form at the right time.

However, this time around, the Belarus wrestling federation bluntly told the WFI that “it would not be able to host the Indian wrestlers as their own wrestlers would be away for training elsewhere”.

The message from the Belarus wrestling federation came after the WFI dilly-dallied in finalising the training schedule and did not tell the exact dates of the team's arrival in Minsk. However, the WFI officials maintained that it was an excuse from Belarus as having a training stint with the Indian team would have exposed their own top grapplers and thus minimised their chances of winning at the Games.

So, the WFI hurriedly arranged team’s training stint in Poland, followed by participation in the Poland Cup to be held from June 17 to 19.

The plan was to send all the eight Rio-bound wrestlers last week. But with Kumar’s case still in the court, the departure was put on hold.

“Even the focus of our wrestlers is not entirely on the training because of the ongoing court battle. This is hampering our daily training as well as the Olympics preparation. And this is certainly not the best scenario for Indian wrestling, given the fact that we expect a repeat of London Games in Rio,” said a senior WFI official on Saturday.