It has been noticed that the ones who become the champions of the National Greco-Roman Wrestling Championship are often winners in the following years too. But this time, the three wrestlers who became champions at this year’s Nationals were all first-timers. Neeraj of Delhi in the 63 kg category, Gaurav of Uttar Pradesh in 67 kg and Deepanshu of SSCB in 97 kg were almost unbelievable in their performances.
In the 60 kg category, Gyanendra, the Asian Championships medallist, had to satisfy himself with a bronze, as he lost to Madhya Pradesh’s Sunny Jadhav. Sunny applied the `Dhak` technique on two occasions and ended the bout in his favour. The only satisfying point for Gyanendra was that Sunny reached the finals and opened the way to the bronze medal for Gyanendra. It is worth mentioning here that Sunny Jadhav, who lost to Manish in the final, is from a very poor family and lives in a slum.
Similarly, the wrestler in the 130 kg category, Deepak Punia, who had won the silver and bronze medals in the last two Nationals, had to return empty-handed this time. Losing weight this time and fighting in the 97 kg category can be a reason for his downfall. Punjab’s Narendra Cheema used the four-point technique twice against him and won the bout comfortably.
In the 67 kg category, Ashu, who won the medal in the Senior Asian Championship last year, lost to Sachin this time. Sachin applied the four-point technique of throw twice and won the bout easily.
The same thing happened in the rest of the six weight classes, usually in Greco-Roman style wrestling. The previous champions were successful in saving their titles. Arjun Halakurki in 55 kg, Manish in 60 kg, Gurpreet in 77 kg, Harpreet in 82 kg, Sunil in 87 kg and Naveen in 130 kg retained their gold medals. Among them, Sunil had won gold at the Asian Championship last year. Gurpreet, Harpreet and Naveen winning gold at the national level is no surprise. Internationally, these three wrestlers have won many medals for the country too. SSCB won the team title while RSPB was the runners up. A major achievement for the host, Punjab, was that they secured the third place after many years.
Significantly, no Indian Greco-Roman wrestler has qualified for the Tokyo Olympics so far. Four wrestlers have qualified in the freestyle category. There are two Olympic qualifying tournaments left. The first will be held in Almaty in Kazakhstan and the second in Sofia in Bulgaria in April this year.