‘Competed with two broken fingers’: India’s Jiu-Jitsu ace Siddharth Singh reveals how he won silver in Asian Continental

Ranked fourth in Asia and first in India, Siddharth Singh has been reaching plenty of milestones lately. The 36-year-old recently added another achievement to his bag of laurels as he clinched silver in the recent Asian Continental Championship. Speaking exclusive to to Hindustan Times, he made a shocking revelation that he fought in the tournament with two broken fingers.

Commenting on his silver medal, he said, “I feel elated at becoming the first Indian in history to win an Asian Silver medal at the Asian Continental Jiu Jitsu Championships.”

The New Delhi native opened up about his preparations for the tournament, despite it being announced on short notice. "Unfortunately I broke 2 of my fingers on the second day of the training camp and this prevented me from training a number of positions, furthermore due to this injury I had to re-imagine my training camp, a lot of my training required me training while holding tennis balls to ensure i wouldn't accidentally grip anything with my broken fingers. Another setback for me came 2 weeks before the tournament when I suffered a sprained ankle during training. However, where I was fortunate was that I had planned a short training trip to Thailand at Temple Jiu-Jitsu gym to train with Brazilian Black Belt Marcelo Tavares. That one week in Thailand gave me an opportunity to train with a world level coach and get to train with very high level International training partners", he said.

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Opening up on his toughest fight in the tournament, the New Delhi native stated that he had to compete against a war-tested soldier from Colombia. He also revealed how he won the nerve-wracking contest with 15 seconds to go. "My most challenging fight was against an opponent from Colombia who is an active commando in the UAE army. He was a war tested soldier who had spent his life in war and combat and to make matters worse for me he had a walkover in the first round while I had a tough first round fight with a UAE fighter. Therefore I was going into my second fight with a commando after having already fought just 3 mins earlier while the commando was fresh and raring to go," he said.

"I understood quickly that I needed to slow his attacks down at the start of the fight, this would both give me an opportunity to get a breather and also I would be able to plan my attacks more methodically. This worked and with 2 mins to go I was ahead on points 3-2. I maintained the lead and started to conserve my energy for the following fight, however my energy conservation plans were dealt a severe blow when with just 29 seconds to go the referee decided to overturn my 2 points for some bizarre and unexplained reason and now I was trailing 1-2 on points."

"With 29 seconds to go and seeing the Indian fans in the audience look dejected, confused and feeling like they might have been robbed of a certain victory. I decided that I would fight with everything I have to ensure that the injustice is not allowed to be carried out. With 15 seconds to go, I found myself in the standing position along with my opponent and I managed to secure my opponent's collar which I used to face-plant him down on the mat with every last ounce of energy and effort. With him on the mat and me on top, I had to get past his legs to secure the 2 points. With 5 seconds left I pushed with every last breath I had to pass my opponents legs and managed to hold him down for 3 seconds winning the necessary points to secure the win."

Siddharth also grabbed bronze in the recent AJP Abu Dhabi Pro, which took place in September. He will be aiming to build on his momentum and add more medals to his impressive cabinet.

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