His eyes firmly trained on the 2016 Rio Games, two-time Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar, in all probability, will skip the upcoming World Championship as well as the Asian Games slated to be held next month, as he now wants to win a gold in the biggest sporting event.
The Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) on Wednesday announced the squad for the Asian Games, which did not feature Sushil’s name, and said it will finalise the team for the FIlA World Wrestling Championship to be held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan from September 8 to 14 in a couple of days.
“Sushil has informed us about his unwillingness to compete in either of the two upcoming tournaments as he wants to only focus on the 2016 Olympics,” a top WFI official said on condition of anonymity.
For the Asiad, to be held in Incheon, South Korea from September 19, Narsingh Pancham Yadav has replaced Sushil in the 74kg freestyle event.
Asian Games squads:
Freestyle: Amit Kumar (57kg), Bajrang (61kg), Yogeshwar Dutt (65kg), Praveen Rana (70kg), Narsingh Pancham Yadav (74kg), Pawan Kumar (86kg) and Satywart Kadian (97kg).
Greco Roman: Ravinder Singh (59kg), Sandeep Yadav (66kg), K K Yadav (71 kg), Gurpreet Singh (75kg), Harpreet Singh (80kg), Manoj Kumar (85kg) and Hardeep (98kg).