2024 Year in Sport, Wrestling: The shadow of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, Vinesh’s Paris heartbreak and political turn, Bajrang’s doping hurdle
2024 was a chaotic year for Indian wrestling. The crisis between protesting wrestlers and former Federation chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh was front and centre of the ecosystem right at the start of the year. As the body underwent elections, fresh resistance and a fractured Olympic preparation, the star wrestlers in the thick of it all had the spotlights on them. Up and coming wrestlers, who perhaps once sought solace in the movement for change triggered by the trio, eventually turned on them with the impasse affecting their competitive prospects.
A dramatic Olympic campaign followed with just one medal for Aman Sehrawat and an emotionally draining experience for Vinesh Phogat who missed out on a medal after failing to make the sanctioned weight by 1 kg. The experience drove her to retirement and then to politics where she won her first election.
As for her partners in the tumultuous movement to clean up Indian wrestling, Sakshi Malik ended the year by welcoming parenthood and penning a tell-all book, while Bajrang Punia now has a new battle to fight against doping authorities.
Here’s a look at the year’s top highlights and what happened outside an Indian ecosystem currently in flames.
Loaded in buses, the junior wrestlers arrived from different parts of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi, catching the police unaware.
Loaded in buses, the junior wrestlers arrived from different parts of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi, catching the police unaware.
JANUARY
- Hundreds of junior wrestlers assembled at Jantar Mantarfor a three-hour protest against the loss of one crucial year of their careers, a situation for which they blamed top grapplers Bajrang Punia, Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat. Loaded in buses, the junior wrestlers arrived from different parts of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi, catching the police unaware.
FEBRUARY
- Following the protests by the country’s topmost wrestlers against the Wrestling Federation of India for alleged sexual abuse by its then chief, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, and other improprieties, the National wrestling championships returned amid utter chaos.Held five months before the Paris Olympics, the two domestic events — one held in Pune by some Wrestling Federation of India office-bearers and another in Jaipur by the government-sanctioned Indian Olympic Association-appointed ad hoc committee — served as an instrument of one-upmanship in a detestable battle that hampered the wrestlers’ interest.
Vinesh Phogat during the trials for the Paris Olympics
| Photo Credit:
Shashi Shekhar Kashyap/ The Hindu
Vinesh Phogat during the trials for the Paris Olympics
| Photo Credit:
Shashi Shekhar Kashyap/ The Hindu
MARCH
- Indian wrestlers Vinesh Phogat and Sakshi Malik condemned the Indian Olympic Association’s decision to dissolve the ad hoc wrestling committee and give complete administrative control to the Wrestling Federation of India. This meant that Sanjay Singh’s panel, which was elected in December 2023, was set to return to power. Singh is among Brij Bhushan’s loyalists and his election to the WFI top job meant the latter continued to hold sway over the sport.
- In an unusual development, double World championships bronze medallistVinesh Phogat competed in two Olympic weights, 50kg and 53kg, on the same day and emerged as the winner in the lighter division in the selection trials for the Asian wrestling championships and Asian Olympic Games qualifier held at Patiala.
APRIL
- In the run-up to the Paris Olympics, Russia’s two-time Olympic wrestling champion Abdulrashid Sadulaev was excluded from qualifiers because of his support of the war in Ukraine.
- After being elected as the chairman of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) Athletes’ Commission, former World championships bronze medallist and Arjuna award winner Narsingh Yadav said he would stand by the athletes and work for their welfare.
Former wrestler Narsingh Pancham Yadav was elected chairman of the wrestling Federartion of India’s Athletes Commission in Varanasi
| Photo Credit:
Sandeep Saxena
Former wrestler Narsingh Pancham Yadav was elected chairman of the wrestling Federartion of India’s Athletes Commission in Varanasi
| Photo Credit:
Sandeep Saxena
MAY
- Acting upon Bajrang Punia’s provisional suspension by National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) for his ‘refusal’ to give urine sample, United World Wrestling put the World and Olympic medal winning wrestler under suspension until December 31, 2024.
- A Delhi court framed charges of sexual harassmentagainst the former Wrestling Federation of India president Brij Bhushan Singh. He was set to face trial for allegedly harassing five women wrestlers.
AUGUST
- Indian women wrestlers continued their impressive ascent by breaking Japan’s dominance and clinching the team title at the Princess Sumaya Bint al-Hasan Arena in the World Under-17 Championships in Amman, Jordan, for the first time.
- Aman Sehrawat won the bronze medal at the Paris Olympics in the 57kg caregory. Here’s how he lost 5kg before the weigh-in for the bout.
- Vinesh Phogat, meanwhile, did not enjoy similar luck as she fell short of making weight by just 100 grams. She was disqualified from her final bout. She appealed the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sportbut in vain. CAS eventually published a detailed verdict on Phogat’s appeal, saying the onus lay on the athlete to make weight
- Vinesh was honoured with a gold medal in her native village; and gave a moving speech amidst festivities that went well past midnight.
- The Inspire Institute of Sport (IIS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the United World Wrestling (UWW), the global governing body for wrestling, to develop the sport in India.
FEATURE: Regardless of her choice, we are all richer for having experienced Vinesh Phogat as long as we did. There weren’t many like her, and there won’t be many like her, wrote Jonathan Selvaraj.
SEPTEMBER
- Indian wrestlers Sakshi Malik and Geeta Phogat announced the formation of the Wrestling Champions Super League.
- Nikita won a silver in the women’s 62 kg freestyle category, while Neha clinched a bronze as India finished overall second with five medals at the U20 Wrestling World Championships.
- Pakistani wrestler Ali Asad was stripped of his bronze medal in the Commonwealth Games after testing positive for using performance enhancing drugs
- Former wrestler Vinesh Phogat began her political career on a winning note emerging triumphant from the Julana constituency in the Assembly Elections in Haryana. Vinesh, an Indian National Congress candidate, defeated Bharatiya Janata Party’s Yogesh Kumar by 6015 votes.
- Wrestling Federation of India president Sanjay Singh urged the Commonwealth Games Federation to retain the sport in the 2026 CWG roster but also conceded that prospective host Scotland might not relent.
OCTOBER
- The government cleared the Indian wrestling team’s participation at the World Championshipsafter all the 12 selected athletes assembled outside the residence of Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and sought his intervention, a day after the WFI withdrew the nation’s entries from the prestigious tournament.
NOVEMBER
- Mansi Ahlawat grabbed a bronze to extend India’s medal-winning run at the World Championships but the men’s freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestlers will return empty-handed.
- Sakshi Malik’s memoir titled ‘Witness,’ co-authored by Jonathan Selvaraj, is the story of India’s only female Olympic medallist who also became one of the faces of arguably the biggest protest in Indian sports history.
- The National Anti-Doping Agency suspended Bajrang Punia for four yearsfor his refusal to provide his sample for a dope test on March 10 during selection trials for the national team.
DECEMBER
- Podcast: Doping: Why does India continue to be amongst topmost offenders?
- The three-day Senior National Wrestling Championship got underway at the Koramangala Indoor Stadium in Bengaluru, but with its sheen significantly wiped out.
- In a big blow to India’s medal prospects, the executive board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has dropped shooting, weightlifting and hockey from the roster of medal sports for the much-delayed 2026 Youth Olympics in Dakar, Senegal. The 25 sports in which medals will be given are athletics (track and field), aquatics (swimming), archery, badminton, baseball (baseball 5), basketball (3×3), boxing, breaking, cycling (road cycling), equestrian (jumping), fencing, football (futsal), gymnastics (artistic), handball (beach handball), judo, rowing (coastal rowing), rugby (rugby sevens), sailing, skateboarding (street), table tennis, taekwondo, triathlon, volleyball (beach volleyball), wrestling (beach wrestling), and wushu.