We are just a few days away from our 78th Independence Day, and I have a wish this year. The Indian contingent has just come back from the Paris Olympics 2024, and for me, personally, it was embarrassing to see the way our athletes struggled in certain sports. Let alone a medal, we did not put up a fight even. But wrestling perhaps was a savior. Aman Sehrawat clinched a bronze medal, while Vinesh Phogat did her best to reach the final of the women’s 50 kg category. Nisha Dahiya was impressive too, when she unfortunately suffered an injury and bowed out.
But, all in all, one medal is only job half done. Six wrestlers managed only one medal. We did not even have full qualification in men’s freestyle category. Ravi Dahiya was injured, Deepak Punia and Bajrang Punia could not make the cut for different reasons. But the biggest problem of them all — we did not have a single qualification in Greco-Roman wrestling. That is six medals lost, even before competing.
While Japan won two golds there, Iran picked up two as well. Bulgaria and Cuba clinched one each. So that’s that.
India’s Poor History at Greco-Roman
Let’s face it. We have always been mediocre at this form of wrestling. The last time we had qualification in Greco-Roman at the Olympics, was in 2016 at Rio, where Ravinder Khatri and Hardeep Singh made the cut, let alone a medal. Both lost in the first rounds. Prior to that, we had one qualification in 2004 — in the form of Mukhesh Khatri. The record has been poor in this form of wrestling since 1964 — the first time India entered the Olympics in this category. One wonders, what is wrong with Greco-Roman style of wrestling in India?
Independence Day Wishlist: Equal Importance be Paid to Greco-Roman
The simple answer is..it is not ally with traditional Indian form of wrestling. Let’s face it, our Akhara Kushti took decades to adapt to the mat form of wrestling and in the case of Greco-Roman, it has not been able to impress the purists. Let’s face it, the wrestlers are trained in freestyle wrestling, and their discards maybe pick up this form.
All we want this Independence Day, is freedom from the thought — that we can’t make it big in Greco-Roman. But for that, the concerned parties will have to do their bit to spread it. The kids from Akharas will need to be trained at an early age for this. In short, a detailed, planned program needs to come up for this. So that, by this time next year, we could talk about the progress that’s been made.
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