Paris Olympics 2024: Indian wrestler Reetika Hooda – Will make sure fans remember my name after the Olympics

Girls and boys train separately at the Raipur Wrestling Academy near Sonepat, in Haryana. However, Reetika Hooda is one exception to this rule. On a typical training day, one can find her facing off against a series of younger male wrestlers in four-minute rounds. After each round, another fresher opponent comes forward, eager to test himself against the future Olympian.

Reetika is preparing to face some of the strongest female wrestlers in the world by actually practising against young men. The reason: there simply aren’t enough female practice partners in India at her level.

She is exhausted after eight rounds of intense wrestling and has to crawl on all fours in between rounds. Concerned, her coach, Mandeep Singh, crouches down to her eye level.

“You want to continue?” he asks her.

“Aho (yes),” comes the ragged reply. And she goes on.

She doesn’t quit until, finally, Mandeep decides it’s enough for the day.

It’s her tenacity and willingness to push herself constantly, coupled with her recent form, that have many convinced that the 22-year-old from Rohtak could be Indian wrestling’s surprise package at the 2024 Olympics.

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In a squad of better-known and more accomplished wrestlers, Reetika doesn’t immediately stand out. The Indian team that’s headed to Paris also includes three-time Olympic and two-time World medallist Vinesh Phogat, Anshu Malik (World silver medallist), and Antim Panghal (World bronze medallist and India’s first-ever junior world champion).

Those who follow the sport aren’t so quick to overlook Reetika, though. Last year, she became the first Indian woman to win a gold medal at the U-23 World Championships, beating the USA’s Kennedy Blades — who would later claim a spot on the USA Olympic team — in the final.

Reetika followed that up by coasting past far more experienced opponents, including a World silver medallist from Mongolia at the Asian Olympic qualifiers.

Just a month ago, she impressed in the UWW ranking series in Budapest, Hungary. Competing while suffering from a fever, she won three bouts and lost just one after conceding a final-minute takedown to eventually finish with a silver.

In Paris, she will carry the confidence of having already faced seven of the total 15 contenders in the women’s 76kg category — of whom she’s beaten six and lost by just one point to the other (2023 World bronze medallist Renteira, from Colombia).

The rest will only ignore her at their peril.

As for Reetika, she’s simply counting down the days before her competition.

Being the first Indian to qualify in the heaviest weight class of women’s freestyle wrestling, she wants more.

“At the Olympics, I know that there are bigger names than me, not just internationally but in the Indian team. There are three wrestlers who have already won a World medal. Anshu is going for her second Olympics. Vinesh is going to her third.

“I know why everyone will be focussing on them. But I don’t mind that. I know that if I win a medal, the world will get to know who I am. I am just thinking I have to win a medal, and the world will know there’s someone by the name of Reetika Hooda,” she says.

While the rest of the country might indeed remember her name, her family has already come to the conclusion that it was perhaps in Reetika’s destiny to be a wrestler. If not in her destiny, then at least the sport was in her blood.

Her father, Jagbir Hooda, says, “My great-grandfather was a man known as Balu pehelwan. I don’t know how much of it is true, but he was supposed to be a giant among men. His neck was so thick that he would have to turn his entire body around when he wanted to speak to someone.

“There’s a story of how when a bullock cart got stuck in deep mud, he took the yoke off the hump of the bullocks, put it on his own neck, and hoisted the cart out himself.

“His son — my grandfather — was a wrestler who was very famous in local dangals, but neither my father nor I wrestled,” says Jagbir, a broad-shouldered six-foot-three former tanker in the Indian Army. “But while that talent has skipped two generations, it’s finally emerged once again in Reetika,” he laughs.

It was Reetika’s aunt who first determined she was destined to become a wrestler, though it wasn’t because of her skills on the mat. Reetika’s mother, Neelam, says, “Because my husband was in the Army, it was very hard to keep Reetika with us when she was little. I would leave her at my parents’ home in the village, where she got a reputation for sneaking into neighbours’ kitchens and taking away the pot in which they stored ghee (clarified butter).

“She’d bring the pot back home, and my sister would eventually catch her while she was licking the pot clean. And she said, ‘Yeh wali toh pehelwan hi banegi!’ (This one will become a wrestler only).”

There were other hints, of course. Although her brother Rohit is a year older than her, it was Reetika who would always end up winning whenever the two would fight. “It was all playful dhakkam-dhakki (pushing and shoving), but even then, Reetika would be the one who would be throwing him around.

“Very often I’d be called and be told that the two of them were fighting, and instinctively I would be upset at Rohit for fighting with his younger sister, but then I’d find out that Reetika was the one who had started the fight and who had ended up winning,” says Neelam.

For all that early spark, Reetika was a late starter in formal wrestling. She moved to Rohtak city from her grandparents’ village in class five — following Jagbir’s retirement from the Army — and didn’t really play a lot of sports until she was in class nine.

“I was expected to study. I liked sports, but I only played a little during my school PT (physical training) class,” Reetika says.

All that changed during her ninth grade when her school started a handball team on which she played as a goalkeeper. “I loved playing handball. A lot of girls were scared when the opponent threw the ball really hard at the goal, but I never blinked. I was a very good goalkeeper, but I had to keep it a secret from my father because I didn’t think he would have approved,” she says.

It was a secret that was impossible to keep after her school competed and then won a state school championship held in Rohtak. The win came with the opportunity to travel out of state for the national championships.

Jagbir, though, put his foot down, but not for the reason Reetika thought. “It wasn’t as if I was against her playing sports. When I saw that she was good enough to make it to a national tournament, I knew she was talented. But I didn’t want her to take part in a team event. Because of our family background and how she would fight and beat her brother, I thought wrestling might be a better fit for her,” says Jagbir.

In Rohtak, that meant taking her to the wrestling akhara at Chhotu Ram Stadium, run by Mandeep. Although he had only been coaching for four years at that point, Mandeep and the wrestling akhara at Chhotu Ram Stadium had a reputation for excellence. They had already produced a number of elite female wrestlers, most notably Olympic medallist Sakshi Malik.

Mandeep says he was impressed by her from the first class itself. “She was strong. I could make that out right away. She had very thick and strong legs, which are not common among girls.

“I then had her try out a wrestling daav (move) called a double leg takedown, and she picked it up right away. I felt this was someone who would be a quick learner and was also physically gifted,” he says.

While Jagbir immediately enrolled her, he made it clear that she would have to show the initiative to pursue the sport wholeheartedly. “I made it clear that she couldn’t expect her parents to push her to train. It had to be something she wanted to do,” he says.

That was fine with her. “At that time, I didn’t know anything about wrestling. I never even thought I’d get to the Olympics one day. I was just thinking that I finally had the chance to play a sport. I was so happy just for that opportunity,” she says.

Indeed, her mother never had to wake her up in order to wrestle. “Every day, she would wake up at 4:30 in the morning, make tea for me, and then wake me up so that I could accompany her to the akhara,” says Neelam.

That natural talent, coupled with enthusiasm, showed rapid results. After about eight months of training, Reetika won a gold medal in the state school championships, beating girls who had been training for years.

Her own targets would only grow loftier. Within a year of her joining the akhara, Sakshi would become the first Indian woman wrestler to win a medal at the Olympics.

“When she got back to India, the whole stadium went out to receive her at the airport. I remember thinking just when would be the day that I would be able to accomplish something like that and see the whole stadium come to welcome me,” Reetika says.

Things wouldn’t always go just as she planned. “Her career has not always been smooth. There were years where everything went right for her, and there have also been years where it’s been much harder for her,” says Mandeep.

While Reetika had enjoyed plenty of success at the age-group level just two years after she took up the sport — she won her first national cadet title in 2017 — she had to wait many more years before she could actually make an impact at the senior level.

“I won my first senior gold medal at the Vishakapatnam Wrestling Nationals in 2022 after losing the previous three times. It was very disappointing to lose as long as I did.”

Part of the reason was that Reetika hadn’t grown into her weight category. Reetika actually competed for many years in the women’s 72kg weight class before eventually moving up to the women’s 76kg category since that was the weight class that featured in the Olympics.

Unlike most wrestlers, Reetika doesn’t try to get any advantage by cutting weight — the process in which wrestlers starve and dehydrate themselves in order to compete in a weight category lighter than the one they normally walk around in — before a competition. “I tried it once, and I ended up having a headache that made it nearly impossible for me to wrestle,” she says.

This means that Reetika, who stands five feet and six inches tall and competes in the heaviest weight category for female wrestlers, is routinely the smaller of her opponents.

“Usually my opponents will be 79kg before they cut weight to fit into the 76kg weight class. On the other hand, I’m actually only around 74kg on a normal day. I’ve actually gained two kilos to even weigh 74kg. Most of my opponents are bigger than me,” she says.

“It just took her a year to learn to adjust,” says Mandeep. “It’s not that she was weaker than her opponents. She’s actually really strong for her weight category, but she’s just had to understand how to deal with the difference in experience. Once she learned how to win, it became routine for her,” he says.

The turning point, both Reetika and Mandeep agree, came at the 2023 U-23 World Championships in Tirana, Albania. “I didn’t go in thinking that I would actually win. I was just treating it as a competition that would give me international experience.

“Then, one by one, I started beating all my opponents. Before the final, my coach told me I actually had the chance to make history. So I thought I might as well put in my effort to win it, and I ended up doing that,” says Reetika.

In the tournament, Reetika beat America’s Blades, who claimed the Olympic team spot, beating six-time world champion Adeline Gray at the USA team trials earlier this year.

A week later, she competed at the National Games in Goa, where she won a gold medal, beating former Asian champion Divya Kakran — an opponent she had lost to twice in previous matches — in a minute and a half in the first round of the final.

From then on, Reetika has been all but unstoppable on both national and international circuits. “What she lacks in size, she makes up for in speed and strength,” says Kuldeep Sehrawat, chief coach at the training centre in Sonepat.

What also serves her well, says Mandeep, is that she’s hardly fazed, regardless of the competition she’s up against.

“She’s not someone who gets nervous before a bout. Unlike many wrestlers, she doesn’t even look at her draw before she steps on the mat. She knows she will never get a good draw, so she’s made peace with it. She’s ready to take on anyone.

“That doesn’t mean she doesn’t prepare for her matches. Before every competition, she studies videos of her opponents and notes what they have won, but she doesn’t let it put too much pressure on her,” he says.

That’s true ahead of the Paris Games as well. “After she qualified for the Olympics, she’s never once said she feels the pressure of expectations. She just wants to give her best in the competition. When we train, she is always the last to leave the training hall. She won’t leave until she’s satisfied with her training,” he says.

For Reetika, the Olympics are a competition just like any other. And while she’s not a huge name in Indian sports right now, she’s backing herself to change that in the days to come.

“Not many may be watching out for me, but I will make sure they remember my name after the Olympics,” she says.