The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Relaying on team spirit, Indian food, and training
IF INDIAN men's wrestling is all about tradition and passing the virtues from one generation to another, it may have found its rightful heir. He's a wiry young man, all of 20 years old, with a perennially scruffy look and impassive, sunken eyes. But Aman Sehrawat also has shoulders built like bazookas, which rest on a rubber-like body that is blessed with blinding speed.
In the toughest of times for the sport in India – during a period when the country’s most celebrated wrestler, Sushil Kumar, was jailed; when almost all wrestling activities stopped last year due to the protests; and when one of the biggest stars, Tokyo Olympics silver medallist Ravi Dahiya, got seriously injured – Sehrawat has remained the lone bright spot in men’s wrestling.
And so, it was unsurprising that it was Sehrawat, the youngest man in a long list of India’s Olympic aspirants, who saved India from the embarrassment of going unrepresented in men’s wrestling at the Paris Games.
The Asian champion, who competes in the 57 kg weight class, became the first male wrestler to secure an Olympic quota during the World Qualifiers in Istanbul on Saturday.
India can add to its tally on Sunday when Sujeet Kalkal, whose swift counterattacks were enough to take down some big names in the 65 kg category but came undone when he stumbled into reigning Asian Games gold medallist Tulga Tumur-ochir in the semifinal, which he lost. Sujeet will return to the mat again on Sunday, hoping to make the most of the second chance, also the last.
But on a day when India feared the worst after the Tokyo Olympics fifth-placer Deepak Punia went out cheaply in his first-round bout (86kg), it was Sehrawat who ended the long waitforaquotaonhisthirdjabatqualification.
Sehrawat’s rise in this curtailed Olympic cycle where Indian wrestling has had little to cheer for has been nothing short of meteoric. It started with a Cadet World Championship gold medal in 2021 followed by the under-23 world title a year later. Still a teenager, he made a seamless transition to senior international by claiming the Asian Championship gold in 2023, the year where he also won the Asian Games bronze.
But his quest to make the cut for the Olympics wasn’t so straightforward. At the World Championships last year, his first shot, he couldn’t make any impact but then again, it felt like the tournament came a little too early for him, still a freshman.
It was expected that he would seal the deal at the Asian Qualifiers last month. But when he was rolled over by his opponent in the first round inside a few minutes, doubts surfaced over his abilities in the unforgiving world of Indian wrestling and there were murmurs of conducting fresh selection trials for the Istanbul qualifiers.
Grappling with demons
Indeed, Sehrawat himself had to grapple with the demons in his mind before he would wrestle his rivals on the mat. On the flight to Istanbul, the young wrestler wondered about the possibility of returning empty-handed yet again. He wasn’t alone in worrying about that outcome.
Even the Us-canadian commentary pair couldn’t hide their astonishment. Every time an Indian wrestler stepped on the mat on Saturday – there were six of them, one in each category – their crisp summary noted the recent Olympic success and contrasted it with a qualifying campaign where the men deeply struggled.
Given his stellar rise in this curtailed Olympic cycle, Sehrawat was expected to break the duck. And when the time came, he did it with minimal fuss.
He began the morning by overwhelming Valentinov Vangelov of Georgia 10-4 and then returned a few minutes later to beat Ukraine’s Andrii Yatsenko on technical superiority (100). Sehrawat looked to be in his usual flow in the second bout, slipping between his opponents' charging arms to get a grip on the right leg and converting them into takedowns.
In the winner-takes-all semifinal, Sehrawat found himself up against the tricky North Korean, Chongsong Han. Short in height and quick with his movements, Han tried to test Sehrawat’s patience by circling on the mat, biding his time to use his speedy movements to score a point. As it turned out, that moment never came for the North Korean. It was Sehrawat who used his long levers smartly to attack Han from a distance, without really putting himself in any danger. For years, his upper-body strength, long reach, explosive power, and speedy leg-work have been spoken about highly at New Delhi’s Chhatrasal Stadium.
On Saturday, when India needed it the most, he unleashed his weapons to outfox the North Korean wrestler. Sehrawat’s speedy leg attacks coupled with a watertight defence would have made the world and Olympic medallist wrestlers from his alma mater proud.
Ravi Dahiya, Bajrang Punia, and Deepak Punia – who’ve all cut their teeth at Chhatrasal – might have had their Paris dreams all but cut brutally short. But in Sehrawat, India may have found a new wrestling hope to cling onto.
WHEN THE microphone reached Asian Games gold medallist Amoj Jacob during the pre-meet conference for the Federation Cup in Bhubaneswar, he provided the perfect icebreaking moment for the evening. Amoj, who arrived after a long and tiring flight from the Bahamas after running the anchor leg for the 4x400m team that sealed a spot for Paris, clearly wanted to hit the hay as soon as possible. “To be honest, I don’t want to be here. I just want to go back to my room and sleep. I am waiting for this to end,” the 26-year-old Delhi boy joked, with a cheeky smile.
But he did have a point as the time difference between Nassau in Bahamas and India was bound to bring in jet lag. Amoj on Sunday ran the all-important anchor leg of the Olympic Qualification heats at the World Relays to help the team clock 3:03.23s and finish second behind the United States and book their Paris spot. Amoj along with his teammate Muhammed Ajmal will feature in the 400m event at the Fed Cup. From the women’s relay team, who also earned a Paris ticket this weekend, MR Poovamma, Jyothika Sri Dandi and Subha Venkatesan feature on the 400m start list.
Even though drowsy due to jet lag, the relay members were in high spirits after Sunday’s triumph. Jyothika, and the rest of her teammates, credit the teams’ early arrival in the Bahamas for a training camp for the recent success. The Indians landed in the picturesque capital city of Nassau a month ahead of the World Relays to train and acclimate for the event. “We trained at the practice track outside the main stadium where the event was held. So when the competition happened it almost felt like it was another practice session. Had we landed a few days before the event, it would have felt different,” says Jyothika who clocked what would have been a personal best of 51.36s in her leg.
Agreement with Indian eatery
The Athletics Federation booked an apartment building close to the stadium and made arrangements for pickup and drops. An agreement was struck with an Indian restaurant in Nassau that ensured the athletes never felt homesick for food.
“Idli, dosas, fish fry, biryani…(the list goes on). Food was even better than what we had at our camp in Trivandrum,” says women’s assistant coach Nagesh as he swipes through food pictures from the camp on his phone.
On arrival in Nassau, jet lag wasn’t the team's only challenge. The chilly winds in the late evening got the better of Ajmal and the rest. “The first week was the toughest for us. Almost all of us were down with a cold and fever,” says Nagesh.
But once the flu fled, the Indians didn’t look back, putting in the hard yards at the track and gym. Amoj feels nothing was unique or different in the training approach and sticking to the basics alone yielded great results.
Come rain or wind
The coaches also ensured the teams were weather-hardened by making them train in every condition possible. Running against the wind, under the sun, during breezy evenings, and even rain - the coaches didn’t leave any stone unturned.
“A few days before the final race it rained a lot but we made sure that we practised to prepare for all scenarios. What if it rained at the finals? We did not want to leave anything to chance,” explains Jyothika.
But all these efforts wouldn’t have yielded fruits had it not been for the team bonding among the relay members. It has been almost two years that the current lot has been training together at the national camp in SAI Trivandrum. “We spend more time together than with our own families. Our favourite pastime is to pull each other's legs. We are all like siblings,” says Subha while giving a strong yet “friendly” pat on Ajmal’s shoulder. “We also fight like siblings,” she adds. Federation Cup (Finals on Day One): Men: Pole Vault, 400m hurdles; Women: 400m hurdles, javelin, triple jump, 5,000 metres.