cwg 2022: 12 out of 12 medals, but WFI unhappy with CWG show, to review performance

The national federation is not happy that four Indian women wrestlers could not take advantage of the weak zone in the recently concluded Commonwealth Games and missed out on gold medals.

All the 12 Indian wrestlers returned with six gold, one silver and five bronze medals at the Games.

Among the women, only Vinesh Phogat and Sakshi Malik won the gold, while Anshu Malik, who was also the gold medal favorite, returned with a silver in the 57kg category.

Pooja Gehlot (50kg), Divya Kakran (68kg) and Pooja Sihag (76kg) won the bronze medal despite a weak field.

Only six wrestlers participated in the 50kg category. Pooja lost her match to Madison Bianca Parks of Canada before winning the bronze play-off.

There were eight wrestlers in the 76kg category while there were nine wrestlers in the 68kg category, where smaller players such as Bangladesh, Mauritius, Cameroon, Tonga and New Zealand were part of the field.

The only worthy competitor for Divya was Nigeria’s Blessing Oboruddu, a Tokyo Olympic silver medalist.

Divya failed to score a single point and the latter could barely present a challenge for her to win the bronze medal by defeating Cameroon’s Garib Blandin Nyeh Ngiri.

Interestingly, Divya is seeking ‘respect and support’ from the Delhi government even though she started representing Uttar Pradesh from 2018.

However, the biggest disappointment for the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) is that the talented Anshu Malik could not win the gold in 57kg.

Anshu had a good final opponent in African champion Odunayo Folasade Adekuoroye, who is seven years older than the Nidani woman.

A WFI official said, “It was not a great performance by our women wrestlers. If you are not winning such a weak zone, what does it reflect on your performance.”

“We are going to sit down and review the performance with the wrestlers. Anshu couldn’t even strike a proper attack against a very old opponent. Wrestlers should think about it.

“India is certainly a powerhouse in the Commonwealth Games, but I don’t think it reflects properly in our results,” the official said.

However, there is little WFI can do about it. All the wrestlers won the trials and made it to the Indian team.

Vinesh Phogat (53kg) and Sakshi Malik (62kg) ended up topping their categories despite contrasting fashions.

Vinesh dominated all three of her bouts against hapless opponents, while Sakshi erased a 0-4 deficit in the final against Ana Paula Godínez González before pinning Canada.

In men’s events, Bajrang Punia (65kg), Ravi Sahiya (65kg), Naveen (74kg) and Deepak Punia (86kg) won gold, while Deepak Nehra (97kg) and Mohit Grewal (125kg) won the gold. Won bronze medal. each.

Meanwhile, the WFI is set to hold its Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Rohtak on August 25 and will allot next year’s junior and senior championships.

“The trend was to allocate these events at the end of the season to the nationals, but this leaves little time for the state associations to prepare, so we will do it early this time.”

Originally published at Pen 18