Wrestling News: India’s ace wrestler Bajrang Punia, 25, has been training at his apartment which is located near the Sonepat SAI Center. Despite the nationwide lockdown which was imposed in March and the deferment of the Tokyo Olympics, he has been working hard to keep in top shape. But his increasing weight has become a big concern for his coach Shako Bentinidis. “In order to begin training, he has to be near his competition weight and currently he is more than that,” the Georgian coach said.
Bajrang competes in the 65kg weight class in which he has also confirmed the Tokyo Olympics quota for India. But with no competitions in the near future, the Indian wrestler has put on some weight and this has worried his coach. “Bajrang is now 72kg. He must stay at or below 70kg before we start training. He should not be more than that. His weight problem is a worrying factor. I know he is a hard-working and determined athlete but he will lose weight fast,” Shako told Times Of India pointing towards how losing a lot of weight can affect an athletes performance too.
Shako had returned home last month due to the increasing cases of COVID-19 in India. Since then he has been remotely in touch with Bajrang. He now sends the world medallist training schedules, and monitor his progress over phones. But with Tokyo Olympics deferred and no outdoor training due to the pandemic, Bajrang is restricted to indoor training. The Georgian coach believes that “lack of outdoor training” is a big reason behind Bajrang putting on so much weight.
However, he is optimistic that once things normalise and training resumes, “he will make sure Bajrang will lose weight,” TOI report added.
Meanwhile, Bajrang believes that this break from wrestling has given him and other wrestlers time to introspect. The 25-year-old three-time world medallist says that this lockdown has allowed him to understand his shortcoming and work on it. “This lockdown has made us learn a lot about ourselves. Before coronavirus broke out, we trained or competed most of the time. Due to this we never got time to introspect ourselves. But now, since there are no competitions we have got time to analyse our techniques and sharpen them. Jitender and I watch our previous matches and accordingly work on our weaknesses,” adding that all this will only help them in getting them better”.
Bajrang is amongst the four Indian wrestlers who have qualified for the Tokyo Olympics. The other three are Ravi Dahiya (57kg), Deepak Punia (87kg), and Vinesh Phogat (53kg) who is the only women wrestler to have qualified until now. Olympics will be held next year from July 23 to August 9.