Only Narsingh Pancham Yadav's name has been included in the 74-kg freestyle weight category for the camp, dna reliably learnt from a top WFI official.
This is becoming one of the most trickiest situations in Indian sport. On the one hand, there are rules, and, on the other, there is India’s greatest wrestling champion with two Olympic medals on his name.
But the Wrestling Federation of India's (WFI) latest move to keep London Olympic silver medallist Sushil Kumar out of the Rio preparatory camp, starting on May 16 in Sonepat (Haryana), may trigger a fresh set of war between all parties concerned.
dna on Saturday reliably learnt from a top WFI official that only Narsingh Pancham Yadav's name has been included in the 74-kg freestyle weight category for the camp. Sushil’s exclusion is a bigger shock. It comes despite WFI keeping more than one wrestler from the same weight category to give better practice to the Olympic-bound wrestlers.
“We’ve only kept wrestlers as sparring partners who have no ‘personal animosity’ between the two. This is basically to protect our Rio-bound athletes from getting ‘unnecessary’ injury during the course of camp,” said the senior WFI official.
This was the main reason why WFI failed to get any partner for Narsingh in the 74-kg category during the camp. In desperation, the federation was forced to rope in 86-kg weight category grappler Gopal Yadav to help Narsingh with the necessary practice drills.
But Sushil has not given up hope and has written to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and sports minister Sarbanand Sonowal, requesting a meeting with them.
Logically, Sushil doesn’t go to Rio. The quota might belong to India, but Narsingh has earned it. But WFI president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh has said that the federation would wait for the government to give a direction regarding holding the trial in the contentious 74-kg freestyle category.
WFI knows that Sushil is not asking to do something they haven’t done before. In recent memory, a similar trial was conducted between Pappu Yadav and Kaka Pawar prior to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. It should be mentioned here that GS Mander was the WFI president then and the trial was held only after big names like Sharad Pawar and Suresh Kalmadi got involved.
For the record, Yadav won the trial then and earned the right to play in Atlanta.
The double Olympic medallist has also given enough hints that he is likely to move the Delhi high court anytime during the coming week if the trials are not called in for 74-kg category.
WFI insiders are pointing towards Narsingh’s bronze medal finish at the 2015 World Championship in Las Vegas as the reason for his inclusion.
An official list has apparently been sent from the WFI to the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), which doesn’t mention Sushil’s name.
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