While many team and individual sports have resumed training and competitions after an almost three-month halt due to coronavirus, uncertainty over contact sports future including wrestling continues to loom large. United World Wrestling (UWW) continues to mull on possibilities on restarting the sport. While some countries are keen on resuming competition by the end of September, Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) has declared that they will not be organising any events until December this year. “This year we will not organize any event,” WFI assistant secretary Vinod Tomar said.
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This means there will be no U23 and Traditional National Championship which were scheduled for September and December this year respectively. India’s first National Ranking Series which was to be held in Kolkata in April had also got cancelled due to the nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19. WFI has also postponed the national camps indefinitely due to “strict” guidelines issued by Sports Authority of India (SAI). Tomar said that since there will be no sparring it is best to not hold the training camps for now.
UWW Calendar:
UWW had on Monday conducted a webinar headed by President Nenad Lalovic to discuss the future of wrestling. The main agenda of the meeting was how to plan the UWW calendar. While most of the members denied holding any competitions anytime soon, Russia showed keen interest in resuming them. Iran and the US opposed Russia’s stand.
The webinar discussed the holding of age-group competitions at the continental and global levels, to which all the members asked for cancellation due to lost time, as well as the health of the athletes. However, the biggest challenge during the meeting was about holding the World Cup in September this year. To this Russian representative agreed to hold this competition, while Iran and the US representatives opposed it citing COVID-19 as the reason.
WFI is yet to submit its recommendations to the world governing body. The deadline for the submission is June 30.