It can’t get more bizarre than this. India’s biggest medal winning hope for Tokyo 2020 Bajrang Punia has cut short his training trip in Turkey and has returned back to India. Punia left for Turkey on 3-week training trip on 29th Dec and was also supposed to compete at Yasar Dogu international beginning on Friday this week. But he decided to cut short his trip and has returned to India on 4th Dec only after 4 days in Turkey.
The reason for this development is nothing less than bizarre.
WrestlingTV has learnt from its sources that Bajrang’s coach Shako Bentinidis could not procure his visa to travel to Turkey which led to Punia returning back to India. Bajrang had left for Turkey without his coach expecting that after getting his visas processed Shako will join him in Turkey. But the delays in Visa processing led to frustrated Bajrang returning back to India as it was getting difficult for him to manage things on his own in Turkey.
India’s star grappler Bajrang Punia had decided to make Turkey his base for 3 weeks in order to prepare for the 2020 season. The Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) had approved Punia’s proposal to train in Turkey along with his coach Shako Bentinidis. The Asian Games 2018 gold medallist Indian was also supposed to compete at Yasar Dogu international event in Turkey along with fellow wrestler Jitender. From Turkey itself, Punia was scheduled to fly to Rome for the ranking series event starting on 15th January.
Bajrang will now train in Sonepat itself in the national camp by WFI and will fly with the Indian squad to Rome for the ranking series event.
65kg Participant List for the Rome Ranking Series
Agustin Alejandro DESTRIBATS (ARG)
Shaohua YUAN (CHN)
Zhenguang TIAN (CHN)
Bajrang BAJRANG (IND)
Behnam Eshagh EHSANPOOR (IRI)
Abdellatif MANSOUR (ITA)
Jose Javier RODRIGUEZ COLON (PUR)
Selahattin KILICSALLAYAN (TUR)
Selim KOZAN (TUR)
Vasyl SHUPTAR (UKR)
Gor OGANNESYAN (UKR)
Erik ARUSHANIAN (UKR)
Jordan Michael OLIVER (USA)
Zain Allen RETHERFORD (USA)
Joseph Christopher MC KENNA (USA)
The list currently does not have top Russian and Japanese players and it is expected that players like world number 1 Gadzimurad Rashidov (Russia), Otoguro (Japan) will also be seen in action at the 2020 season first ranking series event.
