CHENNAI: Like NIS Patiala and Bengaluru’s SAI Centre, the Sports Authority of India’s regional centre in Sonepat has been divided into zones — green, yellow, orange and red — to ensure safety and protection to male wrestlers and support staff. Most of them will reach the facility for the national camp on Tuesday.
The participants will stay in the green zone and have to undergo quarantine for 14 days before resuming training. They will take a rapid test for Covid-19 on Wednesday followed by RT-PCR test after five days during the period.
As many as 26 wrestlers (17 freestyle and 9 Greco-Roman ) and six support staff were named for the camp. The freestyle wrestlers to attend camp are Bajrang Punia (57kg), Ravi Dahiya (57kg), Narsingh Yadav (74kg) and Deepak Punia (86kg). Foreign coaches including Georgian Temo Kazarashvili (GR) and Bajrang’s personal coach Shako Bentinidis will also be there apart from their Indian counterparts. “We all will reach on Tuesday and take a rapid test the next day. Each wrestler has been allotted a single room and has to stay there till the completion of the mandatory quarantine period. We will be served food in the rooms only,” one of the attendees said.
The grapplers and support staff also attended two meetings. They were informed about the dos and don’ts. Authorities from NIS Patiala and Bengaluru SAI Centre too attended the meetings. “As Patiala and Bengaluru centres have organised the national camps, they shared with us their experience and how to go about it. They also discussed the SAI’s standard operating procedures,” said one of the coaches.
A couple of GR wrestlers might miss the camp. An Army wrestler (GR, 60kg) has expressed his inability to join the camp citing a shoulder injury. It was learnt that the camp scheduled till month end might get extended till senior nationals, which is slated from December 18 to 20 in Gonda, Uttar Pradesh.