Asian Championship: Sisterhood of the squared circle

Sasaki is the youngest member of the Japanese women’s squad that’s here for the Asian Championship, which comprises of two Rio Games gold medallists— Risako Kawai and Sara Dosho. Yet, the spotlight is on this 17-year-old wonder. She’s being talked up as a gold medal favourite in the 48kg category at the Tokyo Olympics. But even her perfect record pales when compared to her countrywoman. Sasaki struts around the warm-up hall with a picture of Saori Yoshida on her t-shirt with ‘dreamer’ written in big, block letters on it. “She is the reason I took up wrestling,” Sasaki says. Yoshida, you’d believe, is the reason why the whole of Japan has taken to wrestling. Japan is the most dominant nation in women’s wrestling.

Since the time women’s wrestling was introduced at the Olympics in 2004, Japan has won 15 medals, including 11 out of the 18 gold medals on offer. At the World Championships, they’re even more dominant – winning a total of 140 medals including 76 golds. China, the next best, has 62 medals and 25 gold.

As per the informally available wrestling stats, Yoshida has a career record of 255-11 over two decades, including domestic matches. As per Olympic stats, she’s lost twice only internationally, once in 2008 to snap a 119-match winning streak, and once in 2012. She has won 13 straight world championships dating to her first title in 2002 and has three Olympic gold medals. Her Rio Olympics ended in tears because she could manage ‘only a silver.’

“Saori is very big in Japan. She’s on television doing commercials, on hoardings, she is everywhere,” says Kenneth Marantz of the Japan News. “Every time Japan wins a gold medal, the publicity just skyrockets way out of proportion. A guy recently won a silver medal in fencing and suddenly fencing is big. Figure skating is losing relevance around the world. In Japan, it’s shooting up.”

It’s amazing how one woman’s success gave birth to an entire generation of world-class wrestlers. Like Sasaki, Kawai too says she took up wrestling because of Yoshida. They are all products of a system that developed in the 1980s when the international wrestling federation was pulled up by the IOC for lack of gender equality. While most traditional wrestling countries were reluctant to change, Japan was quick to adapt. Sasaki, like Yoshida and Icho, began wrestling before she was five. “It’s a family sport. My father used to be a wrestler, which is why I am one. It’s the same with others, including Saori, too,” Sasaki says.

Eventually, like most other wrestlers in the Japanese system, she trains at the famous Chukyo University near Nagoya, which is now called the Shigakkan University. Former world bronze medallist Kazuhito Sakae, a former world bronze medallist, recognized that women have lower center of gravity compared to men but had more
flexibility in the upper body.

So he redesigned some of the freestyle techniques, and made it more about ‘position angles of attack than physical power, more movement and less contact,’ notes William May, who has written on wrestling for almost 30 years. Japanese training sessions itself can be intimidating for other wrestlers. Remember the Rio celebration where a wrestler pinned down her coach after winning the gold? That wrestler, Kawai, did the same on Tuesday during training, only this time it wasn’t fun for her coach, who was slammed three times in less than 10 minutes.

Apart from the conventional training methods, there’s also a lot of cross-training. The wrestlers and judokas – another sport where Japan is very strong – train together at their national centre while the women also climb the snow-clad mountains in the Niigata Prefecture which makes them deceptively strong and improves endurance. “For us, it’s tough to get into the Japan team than to win international medals,” Sasaki says. “Once you are in, it’s easy.”

Kohei Nakajima, the physio, says the Asian Championship squad is among the best talents Japan has had in each category. And with Tokyo Games looming, he expects them to win all gold medals between now and then. “These are all young and best in Japan right now. Like USA dominates basketball, these girls will conquer wrestling,” he says. “This is our Dream Team.”

Matters of mat

Accommodation pangs

A few Indian wrestlers have complained of bias by the WFI. On Thursday, a couple of woman wrestlers alleged they were made to wait at the wrestling hall for more than 12 hours on Wednesday before being moved to a hotel while Rio Olympics bronze medallist Sakshi Malik was given a room immediately at a five-star hotel. “We reached the venue early on Wednesday from Lucknow, where our camp was going on. However, the federation official said we would get our rooms only after our weigh-in in the evening,” a wrestler who competed on Thursday said. “When Sakshi came, they checked her in at a hotel where all other wrestlers are staying.”

The men’s Greco-Roman wrestlers, too, have complained they haven’t been provided accommodation. The federation has told them to travel from Rohtak every day since it’s not very far away from Delhi. A federation official, though, acknowledged there were problems but played down the issue.

Brace of bronze

As a kid, when Anil Kumar went to watch dangals at his village, he was mesmerized by the crowd who cheered for their pehelwan. “I wanted to experience that feeling of people cheering for me, which is why I chose to take up wrestling,” Kumar says. On Thursday, his dream played out in front of a sparse crowd at the KD Jadhav Stadium. Anil made a thrilling comeback as he defeated Uzbekistan’s Muhammadali Shamsiddinov 7-6 in the playoff to clinch the bronze medal in the Greco-Roman 85kg category.

Earlier, Jyoti won a bronze in the women’s 75kg despite winning just one bout. She beat Seoyeon Jeong of Korea 5-1 in the qualifying round but lost her semifinal to Japan’s Masako Furuichi 10-0. However, since there were less number of wrestlers in her weight division, she had no opponent to fight in the repechage.