Wrestling News: The Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) is in a Catch-22 situation on how to send its wrestlers for the age-group championships which will potentially return from September. United World Wrestling (UWW) has announced a tentative calendar for 2020 as per which the continental competitions will resume from September 1. While WFI is ready to send the young grapplers for the competitions, they are in a fix on how to do it with the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.. “Since UWW has decided to hold the competitions it is our duty to comply with it. But the problem is the cases in the region are increasing at an exponential rate and travel restriction are still in place. We will monitor the situation and take permission from the Ministry of Home Affairs on the matter,” Vinod Tomar, WFI’s assistant secretary said.
Another challenge they will face is on preparations of the wrestlers for the tournaments. India has been under lockdown for over two months and complying with the government orders, WFI also had suspended both its national camps. Since then all the wrestlers have been individually training at their respective residences. With no clear indication on when the camps will resume, the youngsters stand at a loss as they have been away from mat training for a long time — unlike many other countries who have resumed training. The only solace for the age-group wrestlers is breaking a sweat at the local akharas.
“We are in contact with our wrestlers. Good news is many akhadas have resumed training in compliance with the Sports Authority of India’s regulations. This has given access to the many young grapplers to weight training. As for the national camp, we are expecting that the regulations will be eased soon,” Tomar said hinting towards a possibility of resumption of camps in July.
UWW has proposed to hold the Cadet, Junior and U23 Continental Championships with a window of September 1 to October 30. As for the Junior world championships, they are being proposed to be held in November end in Belgrade SRB or beginning of December.