Ace Indian wrestlers Deepak Punia and Rome Ranking Series gold medallist Ravi Dahiya will have a training stint in Makhachkala, Russia. The duo will be leaving for Russia on Wednesday.
Dahiya and Punia have already booked the berths for the Olympics Games in Tokyo this year. The duo will train under noted coach Murad Gaudrov at the three-week training camp in Russia. The training arrangement is part of the Tata Motors wrestling development programme.
“The camp adds to our skills in more than one ways as we train with different, highly skilled wrestlers. With strong sparring partners, we learn to deal with the big match challenges in a real match-like situations. We also get to learn new techniques,” Dahiya told WrestlingTV. “You can see the results of this kind of initiatives by the Wrestling Federation of India.
The 2019 Junior World Championship silver medallist Deepak Punia wasn’t able to deliver at the Rome Ranking Series as per his potential due to fitness issue. He had to suffer a first round exit there.
Two-time Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar, in quest of his one last shot at Olympic glory in the Tokyo 2020 Games, will be joining the duo at the camp. He will be accompanied by his personal coach Kamal Malikov, who has been engaged exclusively for Sushil under the Tata Motors development programme. Sushil will join the camp on January 26.
The veteran wrestlers, who had skipped the WFI trials in New Delhi earlier this month due to fitness concerns, has not been included in the Indian team for the Rome Ranking Series, Asian Championship in New Delhi next month.
