With Narsingh Yadav being excluded from the Rio Olympic squad post the doping fiasco, the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) has sent an official request to United World Wrestling (UWW) to replace him with Parveen Kumar Rana. This comes as a major shock for two time Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar, who was being touted as his replacement.
According to our sources, Sushil had resumed Olympic training, presuming himself to be the next natural successor. However, UWW later announced throught their website that Rana would be taking Narsingh’s place.
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The UWW released an official statement which said, “Yadav, who qualified his nation for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro at the 2015 World Championships in Las Vegas, has been provisionally suspended by the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) and is restricted from competing at the Rio Games. United World Wrestling informed the Indian Olympic Association last week that since the positive test occurred outside of the qualification event they would be allowed replace Yadav with another wrestler, or else vacate the qualification spot. The Indian Olympic Association informed United World Wrestling of their desire to enter Parveen Rana as their nation’s replacement at 74kg in men’s freestyle.”
A source close to WFI told Sportskeeda, “We didn’t want yet another controversy in this particular weight category, we were aware that Sushil wasn’t training and we wanted to send the name of the fittest candidate as of now. Based on our study, Parveen had been training hard for this particular event and we sent his name. The UWW didn’t spend much time and immediately confirmed his name.”
Sushil Kumar and his coaching camp are yet to react to the selection of his understudy. Rana has won gold at the Senior National Championship in 2013 and the Commonwealth Championship in South Africa. However, he trails massively in comparison to Sushil’s achievements, and questions will most certainly be raised over the selection’s legitimacy.
More to follow...
