Bajrang Punia Exclusive: I still train twice a day, play darts, cook and read

Bajrang Punia is India’s biggest hope for an Olympic medal and his performance in past one year bears testament of it. In 2019 World Championships, thanks to his bronze medal finish, India secured a place in the Tokyo Games in 65kg freestyle. He carried his top form to the 2020 Rome Ranking Series where he won a gold medal. He is currently world no.2 in his weight class.

Bajrang for past four-years had been dreaming of emulating his guru (teacher) Yogeshwar Dutt at the Olympics. But with the Coronavirus outbreak, his ambition will have to wait for another year as the Summer Games have been rescheduled to 2021. He, however, is optimistic of good days and trains hard despite in quarantine in his home in Sonipat with fellow-wrestler Jitender and their physiotherapist.

Besides training and with more time to spare, he also keeps himself with his newfound hobbies.

In a conversation with WrestlingTV, Bajrang Punia talks about his day-to-day schedule in quarantine, his newfound interests and his future plans after the pandemic is over.

WrestlingTV: For the past four years you had just one target- the Olympics, but now you have to wait for one more year, how difficult is it for you mentally?

Bajrang: These are difficult times for everyone. Yes, it was disheartening when they announced it but then we need to understand that it is for the good of everyone. Also, hosting the Olympic now would be useless as no athlete was able to train. All we could do was individual training. So, without any preparation, no one could have given their 100%.

WrestlingTV: What did your coach Shako Bentinidis advice you to do after the games got postponed?

Bajrang: He messaged me and told me to stay safe now as we have got time in our hands. Also, he advised us to take maximum precautions even while doing individual training.

WrestlingTV: What is your training schedule now?

Bajrang: I am still training twice a day. Yes, the intensity of the training is not the same but doing some exercise is necessary to keep us active.

I now do box jumps, Bulgarian bag and rope climbing.

WrestlingTV: What do you do nowadays when not training since you have more time to try new things than usual?

Bajrang: I love cooking, so I sometimes cook especially ghee (Clarified butter) rice. Other than that I have started reading books. My coach tells me it is a good habit to read books and all the great wrestlers do it. Currently, I am ready Bharatiya Puraani Kathein [Stories from Indian Mythology] by Devdutt Pattanaik. It is helping me understand Indian history.

WrestlingTV: What else are you doing apart from reading books, watching movies and cooking?

Bajrang: I have started playing Dart game. We [Jitender, physiotherapist and Bajrang] have a dartboard on our wall and we have mini-tournaments. I believe I am too good at it. Maybe after leaving wrestling, I can have a future in it. And who knows I might get India its first medal at Dart World Championships (he laughs).

WrestlingTV: What are your plans once things get to normal?

Bajrang: We [me and Shako] will talk to the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) and play out our training schedules. Before I was scheduled to go to Japan and attend a training session there. It would have helped me to learn the Japanese way of wrestling but it got cancelled due to Coronavirus. Now, after things get back to normal we will have to see the feasibility before making any plan.