JIND GIRL WINS GOLD AT WORLD CADET WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIP
BUDAPEST: : Indian grappler Priya Malik clinched gold at the World Cadet Wrestling Championship on Sunday. Malik, a resident of Jind in Haryana, defeated Kseniya Patapovich 5-0 in the summit clash. Malik won in the women’s 73kg weight category. She had also won the gold in Khelo India-2019.
CHANDIGARH : A day after Mirabai Chanu bagged a Olympic silver medal in weightlifting, the news of wrestler Priya Malik winning a gold in the World Cadet Wrestling Championship in Budapest, Hungary, elated Indians. Initially, some even mistook the Haryana wrestler’s feat as an Olympic medal and congratulatory messages with incorrect attribution of the event swarmed the social media.
“People congratulated me on social media thinking I have won a gold medal in the Olympics. I hope, this comes true in the next Olympics in France. I will work hard to represent India,” said Priya from Budapest airport.
Actually, Priya had won the gold on July 22 but the news came to the fore on Sunday morning.
The 16-year-old clinched the elusive gold medal in the women’s 73kg weight category where she got the better of Belarus wrestler Kseniya Patapovich 5-0 in the final. She began her campaign by winning 10-0 in the first round against Milla Andelic (Croatia) and sidelined Veronika Nyikos (Hungary) in the quarterfinals. She cruised into the final bout by a dominating win over Marilla Akulincheva (Russia). She blew away the Bulgarian wrestler, Kseniya Patapovich, 5-0 to win the world title before Indian social media mistook her for a Tokyo medallist.
“I was confident of beating her in the final. I had easy outings in the quarter-final and semi-final bouts,” added Priya, a Class 12 student, who had also been keeping a watch at the Olympics on the Cadet Wrestling Championships sidelines.
“Hats off to Mirabai (Chanu) didi for making India proud by claiming a silver medal in the Olympics. Hoping for more medals for India, especially from wrestlers,” felt Priya, who idlolizes Indian wrestler Vinesh Phogat and took to wrestling seeing another wrestler Anshu Malik taste success.
“Anshu didi is from my village. My grandfather Prithvi Singh and later my father Jai Bhagwan always encouraged me to learn the sport but enrolled in the popular Choudhary Bharat Singh Memorial School in Nidani in 2016 after seeing Anshu Malik do well for India,” added Priya, who is a daughter of a 1999 Kargil war veteran, and hails from a Haryana village Nidani in Jind district where wrestling is a popular sport. Anshu would be competing in the 57kg category in the Tokyo Olympics.
“We have been training many children at the school. Like Anshu inspired many, now Priya will be a role model for many. Female wrestlers in Nidani have become perfect examples for aspiring sportspersons. Youngsters enroll in our school to learn the sport,” said her coach Jagdish, who has been training wrestlers since 2014 in Nidani.
Priya has been striking gold on a regular basis. She has won the gold medal in the 2019 edition of Khelo India in Pune and then went on to clinch gold in the very same year at the 17th School Games that were held in Delhi. She picked two gold medals at the National Cadet Championship in Patna as well as at the National School Games, respectively, in 2020.
“I quit from Indian army in 2017 so that I could be at home and help Priya during her training sessions. My father has trained me and my brother in wrestling. While I represented the services team in various tournaments, my brother is a wrestling qualified coach in the Indian army. My wife and I do farming now and look after Priya’s needs,” said Priya’s 40-year-old father who retired from Indian army as Hawildar. He was a naik during Kargil war and served the army for 18 years.
Priya’s victory led to congratulatory messages flooding in on Twitter. Chief ministers Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), Arvind Kejriwal (Delhi) and Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana) were among those who congratulated her on her triumph.