With flights to Almaty cancelled for the previous two days due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the nationwide wrestling workforce can have to take connecting flights and journey for no less than 24 hours to attain the venue for the Asian Wrestling Championships. The Asian Championships, to be held within the Kazakhstan capital from April 9 to 18, is the primary Olympic qualification event this season. The first batch of six Greco-Roman wrestlers left on Wednesday morning for Almaty through Maldives, confirmed an official of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI).
“It will be a long journey but there was no other alternative as there are no direct flights available,” the WFI official instructed IANS.
It will likely be more difficult for the ladies’s freestyle squad aiming to earn an Olympic quota place.
“The team will leave on Friday and will reach only a few hours before the official weighing-in on April 10,” stated the WFI official.
In the Asian event, the WFI will area groups in non-Olympic and Olympic weight classes.
In the 2019 Olympic qualifying cycle, 4 wrestlers together with World Championships bronze-medallist Bajrang Punia (males’s 65kg) acquired the berth for Tokyo Olympic Games beginning July 23.
Ravi Dahiya (males’s 57 kg), Deepak Punia (males’s 86 kg) and Vinesh Phogat (ladies’s 53 kg) are the others to qualify for Olympics.
“We are hopeful of getting more quota places in Almaty,” added a WFI official.
Seema (50kg), Anshu Malik (57kg), Sonam Malik (62kg), Nisha (68kg) and Pooja (76kg) are 5 prime ladies wrestlers who will compete in Olympic weight classes.
Sandeep Singh (74kg), Satyawart Kadian (97kg) and Sumit Malik (125kg) are the three male freestyle wrestlers within the Asian Olympic qualification event.
Gyanender (60kg), Ashu (67kg), Gurpreet Singh (87kg), Sunil Kumar (87kg), Ravi (97kg) and Naveen (130kg) are the primary wrestlers within the Greco Roman class.
Read all of the Latest News and Breaking News right here
