Anilava Chatterjee, Tokyo: Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) President Brij Bhushan Sharan is a happy man after the performance of wrestlers Ravi Kumar Dahiya and Deepak Punia on Wednesday. Ravi made a tremendous comeback to win his semi final bout against Kazakhstan’s Nurislam Sanayev in 57kg category while Deepak Punia went down fighting against David Taylor in 86kg semi final. With Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat still have their bouts remaining; the country can expect more medals from wrestling. So far India’s best performance from wrestling in Olympics has been in London 2012 when Sushil Kumar and Yogeshwar Dutt won silver and bronze. Mr Sarang proudly announced that if the wrestlers do not produce a better performance than London 2012 then he will consider it as a failure.
“If we repeat the performance of London Olympics, I would say our result is zero. We will break the record set at London Olympics and make the entire nation happy. And to make this happen our wrestlers have made tremendous hardwork. The government has also helped us in every possible manner,” said Brij Bhusan Sharan in Tokyo.
Ravi Kumar Dahiya staged a great comeback against Sanayev to make his way to the final. He came back from 2-9 points down to win the bout against the Kazakhstan gappler.
“We were fully confident that Ravi will go through to the final. And you might have noticed when Sanayev wanted assistance because of an injury, which was not the case. He was actually tired. Our biggest strength lies in our stamina. Bajrang wins his bouts because of his stamina, Sushil also used to win because of his stamina. All the Indian wrestlers are successful today because of their stamina. And it is coincidence that Ravi’d stamina is the best among the wrestlers in the country,” said the President of WFI.
On being asked whether this fight by Ravi will boost the confidence for other wrestlers like Bajrang and Vinesh , Mr Sharan said,
“Deepak has done exceedingly well, much beyond our expectation. You see he (Deepak) is a cadet champion like Ravi. And their opponents were world champions. We wanted them to fight which they did.”
“Bajrang and Vinesh have nothing to lose after today. Both of them are focused and determined to win gold for the country,” signed off Mr Sharan