A new Dahiya star from Sonepat’s Nahri village

Vinayak Padmadeo

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 19

Sonepat’s Nahri Village has a new wrestling icon. Ravi Dahiya today became the third Indian wrestler after Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia to earn a quota place for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Nahri has a history of producing big-ticket wrestlers: Until today the biggest star from this humble environment was Amit Dahiya, who in his prime was one of the best in the 57kg category.

Amit Dahiya exited at the quarterfinals stage at the 2012 Olympic Games but had a phenomenal year in 2013, when he won silver at the World Championships and gold at the Asian Championships. Like his predecessor, Ravi Dahiya fights in the 57kg weight category. 

One more of Nahri’s favourite sons is Arun Kumar, who won the Junior Asian Championships in 2011. He was on the same trip with Amit during the 2013 World Championships. His namesake Arun has broken into the junior squad.

Wrestling village

The Nahri connection sits well with the Dahiya household. “Our village has produced several wrestlers and Ravi has made this village proud today,” Rakesh, Ravi’s proud father, told The Tribune on Thursday.

Rakesh didn’t get to watch any of his son’s bouts as he was busy tending to his small paddy field. “I couldn’t watch him. The rains have stopped and I need to see that dhaan in our field gets ample water,” he said.

“But Virender coach saab told me all about his bouts over phone today. I was told his opponent got away as he was running away on the mat. I thought he will win a gold medal for the country but I was told his opponent was running away from the mat. But I am still proud and hopefully he will win a medal for us at the Olympics,” he added.

‘Work on his weakness’

In the semifinals, Ravi lost 4-6 to Russia’s world champion Zaur Uguev in a close contest. He won the Olympics quota for India after he tamed world No.3 Yuki Takahashi 6-1 in the quarterfinals. But Virender Kumar, his longtime coach at Chhatrasal Stadium — where Ravi has been training for over a decade now — was not impressed with the way Ravi fought, especially against Uguev.

“He started slow. He did not look warmed up to me and gave away easy points at the start. He did try to make a comeback but you can’t always recover if you trail from the start,” Kumar said. “We will work hard on this fault of his when he returns. Now work will start for the Olympics.”

Before he left for Nur-Sultan, Ravi had told this correspondent that he wanted to win the quota at the World Championships so that he would get ample time to work on his flaws before the Olympics.

He made his wish come true today.