National wrestling championships pushed to January a week ago

The Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) has deferred the following month’s national title to January 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

WFI Assistant Secretary Vinod Tomar revealed to PTI that the prevailing conditions have constrained them to push the Nationals by at any rate a month.

“The situation is far from ideal. It is not possible to conduct Nationals. We will try to host the championships towards the end of January next year,” said Tomar.

It implies the following year will see two public titles.

“We have done that in the past too when circumstances dictated such a step,” Tomar said.

The current year’s titles were scheduled to be held in Gonda, UP from December 18-20 yet Tomar said if there are more intrigued states, they should think about changing the venue. The WFI official additionally said that they are prepared to send the Indian group for the individual World Cup, set to be held in Belgrade, Serbia from December 12-18.

The gold medal champ will get prize cash of 4000 Swiss Francs while the runner-up will be more extravagant by 3000 Swiss Francs. The bronze medal winner get 1500.

“We decided against hosting the trials and are sending the same wrestlers who competed in the Asian Championship in New Delhi in February. Bajrang Punia (65kg), Vinesh Phogat (53kg), Jitender Kumar (74kg) and Sombir Rathi (92kg) have asked for exemption and we have granted it,” he said.

“While Bajrang, Vinesh and Sombir’s categories will go unrepresented, Nar Singh Yadav will compete for India in the 74kg,” he added.

Since the WFI isn’t leading preliminaries, it implies that Pooja Dhanda will miss the occasion as youthful Anshu Malik will contend in the 57kg category. It will likewise guarantee that Olympic bronze medallist Sakshi Malik contends in the 65kg class since her new foe Sonam Malik had contended in 62kg during the Asian event.

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