The TATA Motors 65th Men Senior Free Style National Wrestling Championship was held at Noida Stadium, on 23-24 January. This time, the championship witnessed numerous new faces emerging as champions. Nevertheless, all the eyes were fixed at Narsingh Pancham Yadav (74 kg), who was returning to the ring after four years of doping suspension. He started on a good note by defeating young Gaurav Baliyan, the defending champion, with ease (10-0), but lost a close bout to Dhankar (4-3) in the next round. A last-minute counterattack by Dhankar saw him turn the tables on Narsingh. Dhankar and Vijay of Haryana won bronze medals in the 74kg.
Sadly, Narsingh Yadav, on whom myriad hopes were pinned, couldn`t win a medal after returning from a four year ban. In 2015, he’d won a medal in the World Championship at Las Vegas and earned a place in the Rio Olympics. Unfortunately, his dope test was later found to be positive.
In this weight category, Sandeep of Punjab is the hunt of the tournament. He defeated Narsingh Yadav and a former Asian Champion Amit Dhankad, and won a gold. Similarly, in 65 kg category Rohit surprised everyone by defeating prominent wrestler Sarwan. In 74 Kg Jitender lost to Sandeep and Narsingh Yadav to Amit Dhankad surprised everyone.
However, there were no upset in heavy weight categories. Satyavrat Kadian in 97 kg and Sumit in 125 kg, won a gold and maintained their reputation. Both are Arjuna Awardees. A wrestling competition was organized in India after a gap of nearly 11 months. Asian Championship had organized a bout in February last year. Like the previous years, Railways, Services and Haryana continued domination. Railway won the team Championship with 192 points, SSCB second with 162 points, and Haryana at number three with 138 points.
The competition was significant for the Olympic qualifying events as Indian wrestlers are scheduled to participate in the Asian qualifying at Almaty (Kazakhstan) in April and then the World Qualifying championship in Sofia, Bulgaria. Four Indian wrestlers, Ravi, Bajrang and Deepak Punia have qualified for the Olympics so far.