Ace Indian wrestlers Deepak Punia and Rome Ranking Series gold medallist Ravi Dahiya have reached Makhachkala in Russia for the 3 week training stint. As soon as the duo landed in Russia they were welcome by the snow showers and sub-zero temperatures.
“It’s really cold here and tough conditions. But training in these conditions with the best of wrestlers will make us really tough”.
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 with support of Tata Motors and excellent management by commercial partners Sporty Solutionz”.
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.
