Sushil changes tune on WC show

Sabi Hussain

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Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 19

Just after last month’s World Wrestling Championships in Paris, where the country’s wrestlers drew a blank, Sushil Kumar was asked about India’s disappointing campaign in the event. The two-time Olympics medallist, also a national observer for wrestling, had severely criticised the woeful performance of the wrestlers, putting the blame on the “lack of fighting spirit” and “poor training facility”. 

However, when he wrote his official report on the event for the Sports Ministry, all that criticism and harsh words suddenly went conspicuously missing. In his report, titled “Detailed Report Under my Observation”, the critical observations were replaced by sentences such as “our wrestlers fight good, very close bout loss with world champions and world medallists”. Sushil also praised the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) for its arrangements at the Worlds. Sample this excerpt from the report: “All respective coaches and other supporting staff were doing their jobs accordingly. The arrangement done by the WFI was perfectly fine.”

Turnaround

Sushil had earlier lambasted WFI for haphazardly arranging a two-week training camp at Boulevard de Bercy in France, where the Indian wrestlers couldn’t get quality sparring partners. According to a report, the wrestlers were left sparring with 14 and 15-year-old French wrestlers who were the trainees of a local wrestling club in the border town of Lorraine.

On his return from Paris, Sushil had said: “I can’t understand the logic behind arranging a training camp at Boulevard de Bercy. Firstly, it was located some 250-300kms away from Paris; secondly, and more significantly, there were no quality sparring partners. The Indians were left training among themselves. It’s the federation’s responsibility to send the team to an excellent training centre, but we trained at a place that was not up to the scratch.” But in his official report, Sushil didn’t write a single word about the training stint at Boulevard de Bercy. Significantly, even WFI president Brij Bhushan Singh had admitted that the federation had made a mistake by choosing Boulevard de Bercy as the team’s training venue.

Copy-paste?

Sushil divided his report in three paragraphs to analyse the wrestlers’ below-par show in the men’s freestyle, men’s Greco-Roman and women’s freestyle categories. He had similar comments and suggestions for each category. Sample this: “They (men’s, women’s freestyle and men’s Greco-Roman wrestlers) make some technical mistakes. To improve these mistakes, they need more international competitions to build confidence and winning stream.”

Sushil did not explain what technical skills the wrestlers lacked at the Worlds or what improvements they need to make to avoid such medal-less performance in the future. For the men’s freestyle campaign, Sushil’s report had this to say: “Our wrestlers fight good, close bout loss with world champions.” For the women’s freestyle category, his report had this analysis: “Wrestlers fail to win medals but fight well with World, Europe and Asian medallists.” Rio Olympics bronze medallist Sakshi Malik had crashed out in the first round, while Vinesh Phogat had suffered a second-round defeat in the women’s freestyle event.

Sushil repeated the same analysis for the Greco-Roman wrestlers, but did not dwell on individual performances.

One-page report

Sushil summarised India’s campaign in a “detailed” one page report — in precisely five paragraphs, the first of which was Sushil’s own introduction as an observer in Paris.

The Sports Ministry officials are, as expected, not happy with this report. “What’s this one-page report? Either he doesn’t have the knowledge of how an observer works or he needs guidance on writing a detailed report,” said a senior Ministry official.

“Looks like Sushil wanted to please the WFI with his report since we (the Ministry) have heard that he is making a comeback through the Pro Wrestling League and eyeing another shot at glory at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in 2018,” the official said. “If not, then why is he silent about WFI’s accountability and poor planning?”

Incidentally, Sushil is paid a sum of Rs 75,000 per month for his duties as a national observer for wrestling.

How India did in Paris World Championships

Freestyle: (57kg): Sandeep Tomar lost to Yuki Takahashi 3-14 (pre-quarterfinals)

(61kg): Harphool lost to C Erdogan 0-10 (pre-quarterfinals)

(65kg): Bajrang lost to M Kaya 3-8 (repechage) 

(70kg): Amit Dhankar lost to A Tanatarov 2-9 (qualification)

(74kg): Parveen Rana lost to J Hasanov 0-5 (pre-quarterfinals)

(84kg): Deepak lost to M Matsusaka 2-5 (qualification)

(97kg): Satywart Kadian lost to Z Haiming (0-6) (qualification)

(104kg): Sumit lost to A Ruslanovitch 0-4 (qualification)

Women’s: (48kg): Vinesh Phogat lost to V Anthony 4-6 (pre-quarterfinals)

(55kg) Lalita lost to M Gurova 0-3 (pre-quartersfinals)

(58kg): Pooja Dhanda lost to R Ningning 8-12 (pre-quarterfinals)

(60kg): Sakshi Malik lost to L Niemesch 2-3 (pre-quarterfinals)

(63kg): Shilpi Sheoran lost to O Purevdorj 0-10 (qualification)

(69kg): Navjot Kaur lost to N Ochirbat 5-10 (pre-quartersfinals)

(75kg): Pooja lost to Justina Renay 0-7 (pre-quartersfinals)

Greco-Roman:

(59kg): Gyanender lost to M Ainagulov 0-9 (pre-quarterfinals)

(66kg): Ravinder lost to HSA Omar 1-2 (qualification)

(71kg): Yogesh lost to I Takeshi 1-3 (1/16)

(75kg): Gurpreet Singh lost to M Tsulukidze 1-5 (qualification)   

(80kg): Harpreet Singh lost to A Dilmukhamedov 1-3 (qualification)

(85kg): Ravinder Khatri lost to Viktor Lorincz 0-8 (1/16 round)

(98kg): Hardeep lost to Vilius Laurinaitis 2-5 (1/16 round)

(130kg): Naveen lost to Eduard Popp 1-2 (qualification)