Wrestling’s international governing body, FIlA has announced a rejig in weight classes for its competitions, including those of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, a development which would lead to India’s medallists Sushil Kumar and Yogeshwar Dutt moving up to a higher weight category.
FIlA added two classes to women’s freestyle and reduced one each from men’s freestyle and Greco-Roman competitions, thus setting a 6-6-6 split among the three disciplines in Rio de Janeiro Games. This weight change will also be applicable in the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games.
FIlA said the changes in rule and competition format will come into effect from January 1 next year. For the Olympics, the men’s freestyle and Greco-Roman will each lose a weight class between light and heavyweight. In Rio, male freestyle wrestlers will compete at 57 and 65 kilograms rather than at 55, 60 and 66 kilograms, like they did at the recent london Games.
This would mean that Sushil and Yogeshwar, who were competing in 66kg and 60kg freestyle respectively will have to move to a new category. Yogeshwar will now have to move to 65kg while Sushil will have to compete in the next higher 74kg. “It would be difficult for me to compete in the 65kg. For me, it would be difficult to adjust to the new weight category. It’s not easy to lose even a kilogram keeping Olympics in mind. I have the option of moving to a higher category. let’s see, I will discuss the new wight categories with my coaches and then announce the decision,” Sushil said.
Yogeshwar said the decision will hit the Indian wrestlers hard. “I am disappointed with this decision. Our preparations for Rio Olympics will be affected. I will move to a higher category and hope that Sushil also moves to 74kg. You can’t imagine both of us competing against each other in 65kg. You can’t have India’s two best wrestlers fighting it out for a Olympic berth,” he said.