20 to a room, two to a bed: This is where the medal came from

The disbelief grows as one enters the dingy room. It looks dark despite the light outside, and with barely any space to walk between the beds, the room gives the impression of being much smaller than it is. The shelf at the back has a number of trunks thrown together, taking up precious space, but it’s all they have to spare for their belongings.

Sumit, one of the wrestlers who bunks in the same room as Sushil, proudly points out his now famous colleague’s mattress among nine others in the small room. “See, this is where he sleeps. In the summer he sleeps this side, but in winter he moves to the other mattress. We have to manage with just these two coolers, so he moves to be more comfortable,” he says.

“With this medal, we hope our needs are better looked after than before. Here, there are 20 people to a room with two people to a bed. Not all rooms have coolers like ours, and we have to share the space with rats and other animals. Here, there’s room for everybody,” laughs Arvind, another inmate cheerfully resigned to the conditions.

For their food and lodging, they pay a sum of Rs 1000-1500, depending on the size of the room. “This is how we’ve been living. We have to make do with what we have. It’s very tough, but what choice do we have?” says Sumit, before adding: “Perhaps now that Sushil had got a medal, more money will come into the sport. We have brought it to the attention of the authorities many times but it hasn’t made a difference, so we carry on.”

Sumit makes a hasty attempt to make the room presentable by pushing away a pile of clothes into a corner, but it doesn’t work. The lack of coolers means they have to leave the doors open while they sleep but all that it does is invite mosquitoes.

Surrounded by this gloom, a couple of framed pictures of Sushil, displayed in the only available space — a ledge near the exhaust fan high above the mess — provide a temporary distraction. “This is him with his 2005 Arjuna Award. And here’s another during the 1998 Asian Cadet junior meet where he won gold. Now he has an Olympic medal!” says another colleague, Rajendra. “We are all very proud of what he has achieved, and we can’t wait to meet him at the airport.”

Coach Virender Kumar acknowledges things are tough. “Sushil also had the same difficulties, but he had said he’ll win a medal and he did. Here at the stadium, there are wrestlers from all over the country who are living in these conditions, and I hope they are all inspired by what he has done. Wrestlers don’t get jobs, so many are unwilling to take it up seriously, but now things will be different,” he says.

Even at NIS, Patiala, where India’s Beijing-bound wrestlers were training, the conditions had been difficult. Before they left for the Olympics, the wrestlers had told The Indian Express that the “callous attitude of the Sports Authority of India (SAI) administration could seriously hamper India’s medal prospects”.

“Right from filling water-coolers to sweating it out in wrestling halls with not even air-cooling facilities, it was tough for them,” said a local wrestler on Wednesday. “I have seen with my eyes how the wrestling staff practised in the summer heat. But still they managed to get a medal.”