Bajrang & Co cancel Russia training camp

Freestyle wrestlers in Olympic weight categories forgo 12-day trip, to train at SAI Centre in Sonepat instead

CHENNAI: A few days after women wrestlers skipped a tour of Ukraine, six of their male counterparts including Bajrang Punia and Ravi Dahiya have decided to cancel their training programme in Russia following the spread of coronavirus. The outbreak may also lead to cancellation of the Asian Olympic Qualifiers, which have shifted from Xian in China to Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan and slated for March 27 to 29.
“Visas were issued but the wrestlers don’t want to take a risk,” said Vinod Tomar, assistant secretary of Wrestling Federation of India (WFI).

Ace wrestler Bajrang Punia
Ace wrestler Bajrang Punia

“More importantly, they were going to Russia to prepare for the Asian qualifiers, which itself is doubtful at the moment. All continental qualifiers have either been postponed or cancelled. The United World Wrestling (UWW) has not finalised dates and venue for the Asian qualifier yet,” Tomar added.Freestyle wrestlers competing in Olympic weight categories (57kg, 65kg, 74kg, 86kg, 97kg and 125kg) were scheduled to visit Russia for a 12-day camp ahead of the qualifiers.“Yes, the Russia training programme has been cancelled. We will now train at the SAI Centre in Sonepat,” Dahiya said.

Shako Bentinidis, personal coach of Bajrang and Jitender, was not amused with the cancellation. “Problems ahead of Olympics will not help. We were scheduled to train in Russia for 12 days but now the programme has been cancelled. I don’t know what’s next, but it’s not good for athletes preparing for the Games,” the Greek-born Georgian said. Earlier, six women wrestlers skipped the Ukraine trip. While five of them decided to stay back and train in Lucknow, star wrestler Vinesh Phogat flew to Norway with her foreign coach. However, six Greco-Roman wrestlers in Olympic weight categories left for Baku, Azerbaijan, a couple of days ago despite an advisory issued by the government in this regard.

“The government has advised all national sports federations to exercise caution while planning foreign competitions and training for the teams and individual athletes in the light of the importance of some of these competitions which contribute to Olympic qualification,” read the advisory. “While the government understands the criticality of ranking tournaments and Olympic qualifiers, you would understand that the health of our athletes takes precedence. Therefore we would like to request the NSFs to adhere by the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines.” Other federations are also reviewing their travel plans for training and competitions abroad.

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