The biggest hope of the Indian wrestling for Tokyo 2020 Olympics Bajrang Punia has started training in Sonepat with his new training partner. Punia has recovered from all his injuries and has started training in full flow. In order to prepare himself for the tougher challenges ahead, 2019 Khel Ratna award winner Punia has called on Russia’s Viktor Rassadin to be his sparring partner. Viktor is already in India and has began to spar with the Indian champion.
Punia’s coach Shako Bentinidis confirmed the development to WrestlingTV, “Bajrang needed some strong sparring partner and we zeroed down on Rassadin. He is very talented and strong wrestler, sparring with him will help Bajrang”.
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The Russian is considered as one of the most talented wrestlers in the country and recently won Dmitiri Korkin International tournament in the same category as Bajrang i.e 65kg. In-fact this year in May itself Punia and Rassadin competed against each other in the finals of Ali Aliyev International event in Kaspissk, Russia. Bajrang got the better of the local favourite 13-8 in his final bout after being down 0-5 at one stage.
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Shako further elaborated on engaging the Russian, “Viktor himself is targeting 2020 Olympics qualification. It’s just that competition in Russia is too strong. If everything goes well and Russian federation permits, Viktor will also travel with us to our next training base either in Turkey or Russia”.
Bajrang himself thanked the Russian for agreeing to the training session with him in India. In a social media update, Bajrang wrote – “Happy to have you here for training @viktor_rassadin thank you for coming on short notice. I appreciate it”
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Punia and Shako are now planning a 3 week training trip either in Turkey or in Russia. According to Shako, the first competitive tournament for the Olympic year for his ward will most probably be the UWW Ranking series event in Rome starting from 15th Jan.
