While the Olympic Games of Beijing and london established India as an emerging superpower in the world of wrestling, the Senior Asian Wrestling Championships of 2013 revealed its formidable bench strength.
Despite missing their biggest stars in double Olympic medalist Sushil Kumar and Yogeshwar Dutt, the Indian wrestling squad came up with their best ever medal haul in the freestyle categories, finishing with two gold and two bronze medals to clinch the team trophy.
The Indian eves were not to be left behind. They also recorded their best haul ever with one silver and four bronze medals, thus handing the hosts the overall trophy as well.
One of the biggest indicators of strength of any team is the kind of bench strength that they have and the continental event proved that Indian wrestling boasts of ample resources on that front with several talented wrestlers in every weight category. Except for Amit Kumar Dahiya (55 kg) and Narsingh Pancham Yadav (84 kg) in the Freestyle categories, the rest of the Indian grapplers in both the Freestyle and Greco-Roman events were making their maiden appearance at the senior level.
For some of them, their lack of experience and the struggle to make that big leap from the junior to the senior level was quite clearly apparent. But some of the others like Amit Dhankar, who won the gold medal in the 66 kg freestyle category and Bajrang, who ended up with a bronze medal in the 60 kg freestyle event, fought like seasoned veterans.
In the men’s 120 kg Freestyle event, Hitender Singh was unlucky to miss out on making it to the final. Although he clinched the bronze medal by demolishing Dmitry Popov of Kazakhstan in just around a minute, the burly youngster from Delhi felt that he could have been a strong contender for the gold medal but was let down by a lack of experience.
Indian chief coach Vinod Kumar is already looking forward to the world championships in September. “The massive success at the Asian championships has given us a lot of confidence for the world championships. While Sushil and Yogeshwar are expected to return to full fitness, the performance of the youngsters is extremely encouraging,” he said. “The junior boys did extremely well despite lacking experience.”
But despite success in the Freestyle categories, the performances in the Greco-Roman events provide a stark and depressing contrast. India finished without a single medal although Bhim Singh (96 kg) came close to taking home a bronze before being defeated by Yerulan Iskakov of Kazakhstan.
Hargovind Singh, chief coach of the Indian Greco-Roman squad, asserted that the Indian Wrestling Federation (IWF) should make sure that the style, which is unfamiliar to desi grapplers, is introduced at the grassroots level.
“The competition was very tough, but our boys did well, considering the level of competition they were up against. But the problem is, in India, the Greco-Roman style is not taken very seriously. Indian wrestlers generally start out with Freestyle and only those who have no chances of winning medals at the national level, turn to Greco-Roman because it offers far less competition and the chances of winning medals or representing the country is far greater,” Hargovind said. “There is no Greco-Roman wrestling at the inter-university tournaments also, which only feature the Freestyle category. In fact, trials for jobs in police and paramilitary forces or the railways are conducted only in Freestyle category while Greco-Roman is completely ignored.”
Maybe India should learn a thing or two from Iran who have broken domination of the east European nations and have emerged as a major force at the Olympics.