WFI to hold camp in bio bubble at Sonepat for Tokyo-bound wrestlers

LUCKNOW : Eying a “rich medal haul” at the Tokyo Olympics starting on July 23, the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) has decided to hold a national camp “exclusively” for all eight Tokyobound wrestlers, including four women, in a bio-secure bubble at Sonepat from Tuesday.

All eight wrestlers — Seema Bisla (50kg), Vinesh Phogat (53kg), Anshu Malik (57kg), Sonam Malik (62kg), Ravi Kumar Dahiya (57kg), Bajrang Punia (65kg), Deepak Punia (86 kg) and Sumit Malik (125 kg) — have been asked to report to the Sports Authority of India’s centre on Tuesday.

The last to make the cut for Olympics was Seema Bisla, who punched her ticket to the Games as she got the better of Poland’s Anna Lukasiak at the World Olympic Wrestling Qualifiers in the 50kg semifinal in Sofia, Bulgaria, only last week.

The camps for men at Sonepat and for women at Lucknow were suspended indefinitely in April after the Asian Olympics qualifier and the Asian Championship at Almaty, Kazakhstan as a few wrestlers at Sports Authority of India’s centre in Lucknow tested Covid-19 positive.

“The WFI has decided to hold the training camp of all eight Tokyo-bound wrestlers at Sonepat and will ask the authorities concerned to arrange for the biosecure bubble so that there should be no problem to our wrestlers,” WFI’s assistant secretary Vinod Tomar said on Thursday after a meeting with all stake holders, including chief national coach Kuldeep Malik.

On resumption of the national camps for both men and women who haven’t qualified for Olympics, Tomar didn’t say anything. But he said that WFI’s focus was now on the Tokyo Games as it expects a rich haul of medals at the mega event.

“We are focused on Tokyo Games and hoping for a rich haul of medals this time. All the eight wrestlers and their sparring partners would be allowed to attend the camp at Sonepat,” he said. “Both Bajrang Punia and Vineh Phogat (who are training outside India) too have been asked to attend the camp at Sonepat, if they wish,” he said.

He, however, was non-committal on the issue of training of all eight wrestlers outside India, but said that they all would be participating in the Ranking Championship at Poland in June.

“The championship at Poland would not only help the wrestlers to raise their ranking for better draws at the Olympics, but would also allow them to test their skills before the big show,” said Tomar.

He also said that routine SOPs of the Sports Authority of India would be in place in view of the dreaded coronavirus and wrestlers have to follow the guidelines at the Sonepat camp.

Mandatory four-day quarantine, including three negative RT-PCR tests, would be required for all eight wrestlers to go through.

“They have to bring a negative RT-PCR tests report at the time of arrival and thereafter two more RT-PCR tests would also be done during the four-day mandatory quarantine,” said an SAI official on condition of anonymity.