New Delhi: India’s champion wrestler Sakshi Malik wants to make wrestling a popular sport in India. The Rio Olympics bronze medalist was talking at a felicitation function organised to honour her exploits in Rio in the capital by a major public sector bank. Sakshi was accompanied by her mother Sudesh Malik.
Malik became the first Indian woman wrestler to clinch a medal at Olympics, and was subsequently honoured with country’s highest sporting award – the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award on the occasion of National Sports Day on August 29.
Wrestling, considered to be traditional sports in India, is limited to rural areas with its greatest wrestlers coming out from the north Indian belt, particularly from the state of Haryana. But wrestling has never attracted the masses and was only confined to a few states. Despite being one of India’s best medal winning sports, it still remains less popular compared to sports like cricket, football, badminton and tennis.
Sakshi, who entered the Games as a virtual outsider, rode on a brilliant performance to finish with a bronze medal. It was due to her efforts in Rio, she is now ranked the top 5 wrestler in her category in the latest rankings released by United World Wrestling rankings.
Truth be told, she was nobody until the Games, and even those who knew her never expected India to win a medal in the women’s under 58 kg freestyle event.
But realistically speaking, it will be tough for Sakshi, leave aside any wrestler to repeat the medal winning efforts in successive Olympics. In fact, Malik keeping herself physically fit and focus for the next Games in Tokyo, will be as tough as starting fresh.
Sakshi was one of the two Indians (shutter PV Sindhu won a silver) to win a medal at the recently concluded Olympics Games at Rio.