The Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) is busy putting final touches to the preparations of its wrestlers for the upcoming Rio Olympics. The Indian grapplers are the country’s biggest medal hopes in Rio, and the federation is keen to ensure that our wrestlers are in best shape in the run-up to the Olympics.
The Indian wrestling contingent had recent toured Bulgaria for a two-week training-cum-competition stint, and after a brief stay in the country, our grapplers will now undertake a ten-day tour of Spain for a training-cum-competition stint. “This is an important stage of our wrestlers’ preparations. We want to ensure our grapplers are given the best opportunities to train ahead of the Olympics,” says a WFI official.
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The Spanish tour will be from July 7 to 17 – the wrestling contingent will train in Madrid. It was learnt that the WFI earlier wanted to have this training-cum-competition stint in Colorado since it falls in the same timezone as Brazil but they federation had to nix that plan owing to accommodating issues. “Training facilities are great there but we could not get any assurance of accommodation, so had to put off this plan,” the official added.
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The Madrid training-cum-competition stint is not the last international assignment for the country’s grapplers. It is learnt that the Indian wrestlers will return home on July 18 and will spend some time before again embarking on an overseas exposure trip. “There are plans in place to send our men and women teams to different countries. The country’s five-member men’s freestyle and Greco-Roman teams will travel to Georgia for another training-cum-competition stint, while the three-member Indian women freestyle grapplers will head to Belarus.
The federation is also focused on ensuring our grapplers get proper acclimatisation of the Olympic venue. According to WFI sources, the eight-member Indian wrestling squad will reach the Olympic Games village at least a week before the start.
One thing is for sure – our wrestlers cannot complain about the lack of preparations as the WFI has done everything possible to fine-tune their final Olympic preparations. Let’s hope that our grapplers come home with a bouquet of medals.
