Matters of mat

Accommodation pangs

Afewindianwrestlershavecomplainedof bias by the WFI. On Thursday, a couple of woman wrestlers alleged they were made to wait at the wrestling hall for more than 12 hours on Wednesday before being moved to a hotel while Rio Olympics bronze medallist Sakshi Malik was given a room immediately atafive-starhotel.“wereachedthevenueearly on Wednesday from Lucknow, where our camp was going on. However, the federation official said we would get our rooms only after our weigh-in in the evening,” a wrestler who competed on Thursday said. “When Sakshi came, they checked her in at a hotel where all other wrestlers are staying.”

The men’s Greco-roman wrestlers, too, have complained they haven’t been provided accommodation. The federation has told them to travel from Rohtak every day since it’s not very far away from Delhi. A federation official, though, acknowledged there were problems but played down the issue.

Brace of bronze

As a kid, when Anil Kumar went to watch dangals at his village, he was mesmerized by the crowd who cheered for their pehelwan. “I wanted to experience that feeling of people cheeringforme,whichiswhyichosetotakeup wrestling,” Kumar says. On Thursday, his dream played out in front of a sparse crowd at the KD Jadhav Stadium. Anil made a thrilling comeback as he defeated Uzbekistan's Muhammadali Shamsiddinov 7-6 in the playoff to clinch the bronze medal in the Grecoroman 85kg category.

Earlier, Jyoti won a bronze in the women’s 75kg despite winning just one bout. She beat Seoyeon Jeong of Korea 5-1 in the qualifying round but lost her semifinal to Japan’s Masako Furuichi 10-0. However, since there were less number of wrestlers in her weight division, she had no opponent to fight in the repechage.