#3 Wrestling
With India’s medal tally having reduced to two from the six medals we won in London 2012, it was wrestling which was the disappointing sport in Rio where all the male competitors from the nation failed to get any medals. The sport has been on the climb for the past 4-5 years where we have seen wrestlers like Sushil Kumar, Yogeshwar Dutt and Narsingh Yadav come to the fore.
However, that wasn’t the case in Brazil as the likes of Yogeshwar, Ravinder Khatri, Sandeep Tomar and Hardeep Singh could not even qualify for the quarterfinals of the event in Rio. Whereas Narsingh Yadav was found guilty of taking a banned substance by WADA and CAS.
But Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Phogat and Babita Kumari took great pride in representing the nation and fared better than their male compatriots. It will be up to these three along with budding young wrestlers who will hope to take India’s tally to double digits in Tokyo.
India has a broad squad of wrestlers in the country and it could be the sport where the country finally dominates in Japan in 2020. For that to happen, strict anti-doping measures need to be taken along with shrewd preparations where wrestlers should do a proper homework on the strengths and weaknesses of their opponents.
