Tokyo Olympics 2020: Are Sushil Kumar's hopes of a final hurrah all but over?

What's the story?

Indian wrestler Jitender Kumar has sealed a spot in the Indian squad for the Asian zone Olympic qualification tournament by bagging a silver medal in the 74 kg freestyle category at the Asian Wrestling Championships. This has almost closed the door on Sushil Kumar's bid to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

In case you didn't know

Sushil Kumar is India's most decorated individual athlete at the Olympic Games. He is India's only multiple-time individual medalist at the quadrennial event with a bronze at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and a silver at the 2012 London Olympics.

Sushil's hopes of completing a full set of medals at the Olympics, by adding a gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics, were dashed when Narsingh Yadav qualified for the Games by winning a bronze at the 2015 World Championships. Sushil appealed to have a trial between him and Narsingh to decide the wrestler who would be representing India at the 2016 Olympics but the appeal was rejected. The whole incident later ended in a fiasco with Narsingh failing a dope test and India being denied representation in the 74 kg freestyle category at the Rio Olympics.

Heart of the matter

The Asian Zone Olympic qualification tournament will be held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan from 27th to 29th March 2020. The finalists at this event will get a spot in the wrestling competition at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Indian wrestler Jitender Kumar sealed a spot in the Indian squad for the Asian zone Olympic qualification tournament by bagging a silver medal in the 74 kg freestyle category at the Asian Wrestling Championship.

The Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) had earlier announced that the squad which had participated in the Rome ranking tournament in January and the Asian Wrestling Championships in New Delhi would be retained for the qualifiers if the performances were as per expectations.

With Jitender bagging a silver medal at the Asian Wrestling Championship, the WFI president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh confirmed that he would be representing India at the Asian zone Olympic qualification tournament.

“We had decided that a medal in either or both tournaments would be considered a satisfactory performance and we will stick to that. Since Jitender has reached the final in the 74kg, there will be no trials and he will go for the qualifier”

Jitender had earlier bagged a spot in the Indian team for the Rome and New Delhi tournaments by winning the WFI trials in the 74 kg weight category. Sushil had opted out of these trials citing a hand injury.

If Jitender goes on to reach the finals at the Bishkek qualifiers, he will qualify for the Tokyo Olympics and it would be the end of the road for Sushil Kumar's Olympic hopes.

What's next?

Sushil's hopes of a final hurrah at the Olympic Games is now dependent on how Jitender fares at the Asian zone Olympic qualifiers.

If Jitender manages to reach the finals at the Bishkek event, it would be the end of Sushil's Olympic dreams. If not, there would still be a glimmer of hope for Sushil to qualify for the quadrennial event through the World qualification tournament to be held in Sofia, Bulgaria from April 30th to May 3rd.

But this would again depend on the selection criteria (which is not yet decided) followed by WFI for the World qualification event.