It is understood that the standard of the world wrestling championship which is held just after the Olympics is low. This happens because most of the wrestlers either retire or change their weight category. In the World Championships in Paris the Indian wrestlers came up with one of their worst ever performance.
It is interesting to know the reasons why the Indian wrestlers failed so miserably at the World Championships.
The first and foremost reason is that this time, the Indian wrestlers didn’t have a single foreign coach and all the wrestlers were under the supervision of the Indian coaches. There is no doubt on the coaching abilities of the Indian wrestlers but questions arise when the wrestlers lose in international tournaments.
This brings us to the importance of having foreign coaches. They analyse the video of the opponent and then form different strategies. Often we have seen that the foreign coaches, depending upon the way the opponent plays, change their techniques and strategies on the spot. Unfortunately, We havn’t seen any such thing in our coaches.
Also the Indian wrestlers seemed helpless as they didn’t seem to have any Plan-B. If a wrestler is good with leg attack then he goes for the same attack without knowing the opponent’s wrestler`s strength in his defence. In such cases or situation, Indian wrestlers should have tried something different. Like they should have gone for a neck hold or thigh hold or any other else.
Also the Indian wrestlers seemed to be mentally weaks. This is because the moment they seemed to trail their opponents they seemed to loose heart.
The fitness of the Indian wrestlers is also under the scanner. Some of them had some brilliant starts but could not maintain it for too long as their fitness was not upto the mark. Pooja Dhanda of the 58 kg weight category, went down to China’s NingniRong. At one time, Dhanda was leading 8-0 but lost 8-12. Just like this Vinesh got defeated in her Pre quarter final bout against USA’s Victoria Lacey Anthony.
In the GrecoRoman style, the Indian Wrestlers seemed to be clueless. Except Gyanender, no other wrestler could even managed to cross the firstbhurdle of their respective bouts. Gyanendra won two bouts and was in the top 10. Sandeep Tulsi Yadav is the only Indian wrestler who has won the bronze medal in the World Wrestling Championship in 2013. This category is not been paid much attention in India, neither there is any price money for the same.
Currently, India lacks the amount of required wrestlers in the senior category. In each category we have only 2 or 3 international level wresters who can qualify for such big events, but the there seems to be young talent. Even though the Wrestling Federation of India has paid attention towards the matter long before the tournament and it’s Preseident Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh has shown his concern towards giving importance to the young wrestlers. We can expect that after this tournament their are chances that the junior level wrestlers might get an opportunity to give trials for the senior level competitions as well.
This time Sheetal and Sandeep Tomer had an golden opportunity. Sheetal’s draw was good and Sandeep who might had to face the olympic and world championship winner Vladimir khinchengashivli had already changed his weight catergory. He switched over to 61 Kg.Just like this, 2014 and 2015 world championship winner Haji Aliyev of Azerbaizan was also in the 61 weight category.
Asian Champion BajrangPunia, who after winning his first bout was defeated by Georgia’s ZurabiIakoobishvili of Georgia which was a close bout. At the end of the bout, Bajrang got involved in a protest against the referee for not giving him the passivity to his opponent whereas, his coach knows the truth and he didn`t lodged any protest
This thing has been proved that our heavy weight wrestlers are not having any scope in the world championship. Even though Satyavrat’s defence has improved but against a stronger wrestler his performance declines massively as he couldn’t even able to give his average performance this time.
There was some lack of seriousness amongst the Indian wrestlers in Paris as many were seen roaming and shopping in Paris rather than being serious for the championship.