‘Protesting wrestlers welcome to compete at Asian Games trials’

Wrestlers Bajrang Punia, Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat will be given a fair chance to qualify for this year's Asian Games, people aware of the developments in the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) have said. The three have been at the forefront of the agitation against former WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh over charges of sexually harassing at least seven women wrestlers.

While the names of Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist Punia and two-time World Championships bronze medallist Phogat were sent by the ad-hoc committee on behalf of WFI to the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) as part of the initial long list for the Asian Games. Malik's name was sent later. The selection trials will likely be held from June 22 to 25 at Indira Gandhi (IG) Stadium here.

"We don't want to give an impression of any bias. Let them compete and earn their place in the national team," said a person aware of the developments. Both Phogat and Punia are the defending champions at the Asian Games.

The WFI, it has been learnt, is in the process of tweaking the criterion to appear in selection trials to accommodate the protesting wrestlers.

"The new criterion are still being worked on, but we will invite medallists from Tokyo Olympics, Commonwealth Games, national championships, and other international competitions to the trials. We don't usually consider tournaments as far back as Tokyo Games that happened two years back or CWG where the competition is not great. All those changes are being done solely to let Bajrang, Vinesh and Sakshi to compete. We don't want them to say they were not given a fair chance," the official said.

“In regular circumstances, we would have opened the trials only for national championships medallists and national ranking tournament medallists from 2022. International tournaments are usually not considered.”

While Punia (65kg) and Phogat (53kg) last competed at the World Championships in Belgrade in September 2022 where both won a bronze, Malik's most recent competition is last August's Commonwealth Games in Birmingham where she won gold. Punia and Phogat also bagged a gold apiece in the Commonwealth Games.

Following their initial sit-in protest in January, the wrestlers resumed training at the national camp but Punia and Phogat decided to skip their sanctioned training trips to Kyrgyzstan and Poland respectively. On April 23, they returned to Jantar Mantar only to be forcibly detained and evicted 36 days later on May 28.

The wrestlers had sporadically trained at the Karnail Singh Stadium during their sit-in, but lack of proper diet, training, and recovery meant they had pretty much given up on their Asian Games chances.

"Our Asian Games chances are as good as over. But, getting justice for the aggrieved girls will be worth more than an Asian Games or Olympics medal for me," Punia had said last month.

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