Prior to the coronavirus outbreak and the subsequent lockdown, India was performing very well in wrestling at the international level. Especially in the year 2019, when they won a total of five medals in the World Wrestling Championship. Bajrang Punia is India’s one of the premier Olympic medal hopefuls, having won a gold medal at the 2018 Asian Games and Commonwealth Games, as well as a silver medal at the 2018 World Championship, and a bronze at the 2019 World Championship.
Punia is very happy to be back at the national camp for training again. “It is very good that we are back at training, it’s not that we were out of rhythm because we were training at our homes during the lockdown. Nevertheless, that cannot be compared to what one can do at the camp, especially when there is an opponent on the mats. The arrangements that have been made at SAI Sonepat are very good and safe, proper zoning of the campus has been done and no outsider can come in contact. All wrestlers feel very safe here,” said the 26-year-old wrestler Bajrang Punia. The Indian Men’s Wrestling camp for Freestyle and Greco-Roman is in progress at Sonepat since September 1.
India has so far won four Olympic quotas, and three are in men’s freestyle wrestling. Bajrang is one of them, wrestlers Deepak Punia and Ravi Dahiya being the other two winners. India has the opportunity to win the remaining Olympic quotas in men’s wrestling (6 in Greco-Roman, and 3 in Freestyle) at the Asian and World Qualification tournaments scheduled for next year. Freestyle men’s Chief Coach, Jagmander Singh is also happy to see the progress of the wrestlers since the camp resumed, but he reiterated that competition will give a better idea of their level. He said, “From the time training restarted to now, the wrestlers have improved considerably. We started slow but now our training is in full momentum but eventually, we need to tune our training as per the competitions ahead. The true test of where the wrestlers stand will only be when they participate in competitions.”
The World Wrestling Championship is scheduled for December this year and both Bajrang Punia and Jagmander Singh are hopeful that the tournament goes ahead as well as other wrestling events being able to resume. Bajrang said, “We were in good rhythm before the lockdown was announced. Even now our training is going well but we will only know our level and where we stand when we compete. A player needs to play otherwise they will never know where they stand.”