Vinesh Phogat gets near perfect draw at Asian Olympic wrestling qualifiers

Two-time Olympian Vinesh Phogat couldn’t have asked for a better draw to win a quota for the Paris Olympics at the Asian Olympic Qualifiers that begin in Bishkek on Friday.

Phogat, who will be wrestling her first international competition since she withdrew injured from the Hungarian Grand Prix in June last year, only needs to make it to the final of the qualifiers to win a quota.

She finds herself on the opposing side of the bracket as North Korea’s Kim Song-Hyan, who is expected to be her only real challenge in the Olympic qualifiers.

The women’s 50kg category is already weakened by the absence of wrestlers from China, Japan and Mongolia, all of whom have already qualified for the Olympics at the World Championships last year.

India has only won a single quota for the Paris Games, claimed by Antim Panghal en route her bronze medal in the women’s 53kg category at the 2023 World Championships.

A medal quota, even against diminished opposition, will be a huge shot of confidence for Vinesh a two-time world medallist who saw her career nearly derailed after becoming the face of Indian wrestlers’ protest against former national federation (WFI) president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh who was accused of sexual harassment last year.

The 29-year-old also underwent an ACL surgery last year before she came back to win the national title (in the women’s 55kg category) and then the national selection trials, to get picked in the Indian team for the qualifiers.

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Although Phogat won both her world medals in the women’s 53kg category, she competed in both that and the 50kg category at the selection trials, losing in the semifinals in the first and winning the trials in the latter.

In the buildup to the Olympics qualifiers, Vinesh also alleged that her personal coach and physio were being denied accreditation for the tournament. Her coach, support staff and sparring partner were finally given accreditation and reached Bishkek separately from the rest of the Indian team on Thursday afternoon.

The draws for the 16 other Indian wrestlers who are on the chase for an Olympic quota are less straightforward than Vinesh’s though.

2021 World Championships silver medallist Anshu Malik will have to get the better of Junior world bronze medallist Kalmira Bilimbekova in the first round and then likely compete against Asian Games bronze medallist Lalykhan Sobirova of Uzbekistan for the Olympic quota in the women’s 57kg.

The challenge will be far tougher in the men’s categories where relatively few wrestlers from Asia qualified for the Olympics from the World Championships. The men’s 57kg category and 65kg categories will be particularly hard to get through since only Japan (in the men’s 57kg category) and Iran (in the men’s 65kg category) have qualified so far.

Asian Champion in the men’s 57kg category Aman Sehrawat finds himself in the same bracket as Asian Games silver medallist Chong Song Han of North Korea. Should Aman, who beat Olympic silver medallist Ravi Dahiya to book his place in the Indian squad, get past that challenge, he will likely face Olympics seventh place finisher Gullomjon Abdullaev of Uzbekistan in the quota match.

Sujeet Kalkal, who is representing India in the weight category where Bajrang Punia (65kg) won bronze in Tokyo is also up for a stern test. He will open his campaign against former junior world champion Umidjon Jalolov. Up next will likely be North Korean Asian bronze medallist Kwang-jin Kim. In the quota match, Kalkal will either face two-time world medallist Ernaz Akmetaliev or Mongolia’s Tsogbadrakh Tseveensuren, who beat Asian Games champion Tulga Ochir Timur in his country’s selection trials.

Former World silver medallist Deepak Punia, the only men’s wrestler in the squad who has previous Olympic experience, also has a potentially tricky encounter against Magomed Sharipov of Bahrain in the quota match of the men’s 86kg category. The Bahraini athlete, originally from Dagestan is a former junior Russian champion and is looking to make his first Olympic games at the expense of Punia.