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PARIS: “I am dedicating this medal to my parents who don’t even know that I am a wrestler,” said Aman Sehrawat after winning India’s fifth bronze and sixth overall.
The story of Aman is poignant. He battled depression too after he was orphaned at the age of 11. If not for wrestling, he would have been lost in the wasted years of youth resorting to drug abuse. He was born to a very humble family in Jhajjar district of Haryana. Battling mental health issues, his mother took her own life. His father, a tractor mechanic, died a year later. His uncle took care of him and his grandfather introduced him to wrestling.
After Vinesh Phogat’s heartbreak, there was some cheer in the wrestling camp. At the Champ-de-Mars Arena, Aman was poise and never looked in trouble against Darian Cruz of Puerto Rico. The first period was intense but the Indian wrestler secured 13 points well before the six minutes of toil against Cruz (managed only 5). After Neeraj’s silver and the hockey bronze, this has taken India to six, just one short of the Tokyo 2020 medal haul of seven.
Thursday was quite a heavy day for Aman. His first bout against Vladimir Egorov was facile and won on technical superiority. Abakarov Zelimkhan match was supposed to be tricky but Aman won that on technical superiority as well. If not for Higuchi Rei (Rio Games silver medallist and 2022 world championships champion), he would have entered the final.
After Vinesh’s disqualification for being 100gm overweight, the Indian team was cautious. Aman weighed about 1.5kg more after his bouts on Thursday and the coaches and the support staff went about their rituals to reduce his weight. He had done some treadmill, training routines and skipping until about 4.30 am. “We couldn’t sleep the whole night,” said Virender Singh Dahiya the national coach.
Reducing 1.5kg is routine for a wrestler. But Virender was anxious. He didn’t want to take any chance. The national coach said after Vinesh there was too much trepidation in the camp. After sessions of running and skipping until four in the morning, he weighed in well below his weight of 57kg by 7.15 am. They then took some rest before the medal bout in the evening.
There is a bit of luck as well. One wrestler who could have troubled him was Iran’s Alireza Sarlak. He was disqualified for being overweight. Aman beat the Tokyo 2020 Olympics silver medallist Ravi Dahiya during the selection trials held to pick the national team for the Olympic qualifiers.
Aman is from the fabled Chhatrasal Akhada, the same place that produced multiple Olympic medallists and world champions. Double Olympic medallists Sushil Kumar is its original product. Yogeshwar Dutt and Ravi Dahiya are the other medallists from the centre.
Aman had a bruise on his nose. But that did not matter. Not when he won his first bronze at the Olympics. He said that he would want to win more medals for the country and like to better his hero Sushil Kumar who has won two medals at the Olympics.
