At 2016 Rio Olympics India had fielded their best two women wrestlers — Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat. While Sakshi was able to create history by becoming the first women wrestler to win an Olympic medal, Vinesh was ruled out of the tournament due to a knee injury. But now after four years since then, the latter has seen an exponential rise in her career. Vinesh is the only women wrestler from the country to win both Asian and Commonwealth Games in 2018. She also won the 2019 world championship bronze medal and with it became the only woman to have qualified for the Tokyo Games. Sakshi who is yet to cement her position in the Indian team has showed confidence in Vinesh and believes she can win the medal for India. “Vinesh was a strong medal contender in Rio as well. She got injured otherwise she would have gone ahead and won the medal for India. I am confident that she will stand on the podium this time,” Sakshi told Timesofindia.com.
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Vinesh has been training in her village in Kharkhoda, Haryana with her sister Priyanka. She has installed a small mat to do mat training until the national camp resumes which was suspended due to COVID-19 outbreak. The Haryana girl gets training plans from her coach Woller Akos who returned to Hungary before the nationwide lockdown was imposed. She was recently nominated for the Khel Ratna award by Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) for the consecutive year, citing her performance in the past two years. The wrestler has won six medals from 2018-2020 including two gold, one silver and three bronze medals. She is India’s best hope for an Olympic medal next year when the Olympics reach Tokyo.
Sakshi eyeing return after consecutive failures at national trials
The 27-year-old Indian wrestler is still amongst the best female wrestlers in the 62kg weight division. She still dreams of reaching to the Tokyo Olympics and win add a medal to her kitty and become the second Indian wrestler overall after Sushil Kumar to do so. But the biggest hurdle on her road to the Tokyo Olympic podium is 18-year-old Sonam. She believes that the deferred Games has given her time to work on her shortcomings and retain the top spot in her weight category.
“In the first bout, I was winning but in the last few seconds, I lost points and lost the bout too. In the second bout, I was ahead 2-1 but in the last few seconds lost by pin. I am not saying that I am weak and unmotivated. I have learnt from those bouts. I have learnt that I need to be focussed in the last seconds of the bout. I don’t want to get distracted. I have not lost to a very big wrestler. All I want to say is that I didn’t give my 100 percent,” Sakshi told WrestlingTV on her two losses to her younger counterpart.
Sakshi is hopeful of another round of trials by the Wrestling Federation of India. In February this year, Sakshi was quoted as saying, “I am hopeful for another round of trials. If I qualify in that I will have two more chances, the Asian World Olympics qualifiers and the World Olympics qualifiers. I want to qualify in the two key tournaments.” The wrestler is currently training in Rohtak with her husband Satyawart at her father-in-law Satyawan’s akhara. “I am very confident that I will retain my position in the team,” she says.