NEW DELHI: Less than seven months are left for the Olympic Games to open in Paris and the future of Indian
wrestling
remains shrouded in confusion and uncertainty.
The administrators governing the sport are busy wrangling over the conduct of the senior Nationals and future preparatory camps.. Thus, the young
Indian wrestlers
looking to make a mark on the global stage have suffered collateral damage for no fault of theirs.
A sport that fetched India medals at the last four Olympics faces an existential crisis following the suspension of an elected wrestling body by the sports ministry.
The Sanjay Singh-led panel of the now suspended Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) has openly refused to accept the Indian Olympic Association’s (IOA) three-member ad-hoc committee, which has been tasked with running the day-to-day affairs of the WFI.
The panel has even rejected the ministry’s suspension of its newly-formed Executive Committee (EC), and decided to conduct the senior Nationals at dates and venues of its choice. It has even threatened to stop the WFI’s member state associations from sending the entries to ad-hoc committee-organised Nationals in Jaipur from February 2 to 5.
Singh has sent letters to the
International Olympic Committee
(
IOC
) and United World Wrestling (UWW), the sport’s global governing body, complaining about the ‘gov interference’ which has suspended a ‘democratically’ elected wrestling body on ‘whimsical grounds’.
“We are a democratically elected body and our suspension is against the principle of good governance. The elections took place in the presence of a returning officer and an observer from the UWW. Both of them approved our executive committee and the winning candidates received their certificates. The elections took place in a fair and transparent manner. Just that the government-nominated candidates couldn’t find favours among WFI voters that the ministry suspended us on whimsical grounds. Neither I accept the ministry’s suspension nor approve the formation of the ad-hoc panel. We will go ahead with our senior Nationals and hold them soon. We will direct the member state associations to send their entries to our Nationals and not to the one announced by the ad-hoc body. Any such move would attract disciplinary action. We are calling the EC meeting to finalise the dates and place for Nationals,” Singh said.
On the other hand, the ad-hoc panel, headed by Wushu Association of India (WAI) president Bhupender Singh Bajwa, on Monday announced that national camps for men and women will commence in Sonepat and Patiala, respectively, from February 9 after the conclusion of the Nationals on February 5. It has been done to give the wrestlers time to prepare for the Asian Olympics Qualifying and World Qualifying tournaments.
However, like on the previous occasion when the WFI was suspended by the ministry eight months back, the ad-hoc committee will this time too call for an Open Nationals – to be organised, strangely, by the Railway Sports Promotion Board (RSPB) whose secretary Prem Chand Lochab is also the secretary general of the suspended WFI – to ensure maximum participation in the case of WFI’s member state units refuse to send entries.
“Following the conclusion of the senior National championships, the National Coaching Camp (NCC) will be conducted. The men’s camp (greco-roman and free-style) will be stationed at SAI NRC Sonepat, while the women’s camp will be held at SAI NSNIS, Patiala,” said Bajwa in a statement. “The camp will extend until the 2024 Paris Olympics and its primary focus would be to train the grapplers or the upcoming Olympic qualifying tournaments including the 2024 Asian qualification tournament set to be held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, from April 19-21, and the 2024 World qualification tournament scheduled for Istanbul, Turkey, from May 9-12, 2024,” added Bajwa.
English (US) ·