NEW DELHI, November 8: Time was when Maharashtra threw up wrestlers of calibre with monotonous regularity. Though the state still has some quality wrestlers coming along, it is Haryana which seems to have picked up from where Maharashtra had left off. Haryana had always played an important role when it came to producing medal-winning wrestlers along with other North Indian states like Punjab, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. Yet, they have a long way to go if India have to register its presence once again in the world arena.The real contributing factor for our sustained failure - save those odd international medals - seems to lie elsewhere: Lack of infranstructure and poor training methods continue to let us down.In this context, the annual Inter-SAI Training Centres Wrestling Championship that concluded at the IG Stadium recently is laudable. SAI had 71 boys from seven of its centres for the meet with a view to give them a competitive edge.SAI, on its part, takes care of the running expenses of all these adopted centres, including education, board and lodging besides providing the TA/DA for the trainees whenever they participate in a meet outside their centres. But the financial cruch, as Regional Director C.R. Gopinath put it, is not allowing them to go full blast. ``We are acquiring new mats for these centres soon,'' he said.Coming back to the meet, the boys from SAI Training Centre (Bhiwani), under coach Bhupinder Singh, expectedly took major share of the medals winning seven gold, four silver and a bronze. The Bhiwani centre, apparently, does not have a proper wrestling hall. Even the mats at the centre in its 11 years of existence have hardly been replaced. And yet, the sustained interest and a dream of making it big one day has kept the trainees here going.And they have not done badly. Sandeep Kumar, 19, narrowly missed a Bangkok berth to the experienced Sujit Mann of Guru Hanuman akara. Sandeep is said to be a good prospect and competes in freestyle 69 kg category. He has grown in stature since achieving the fourth position in the Junior Asian championship. Though he did not win a medal, he made a mark when he competed in the World championship for seniors.Of the current crop that was on view at the inter-hostel meet here, Naresh Kumar (52 kg) and Virender Singh (+83 kg) were very impressive. Naresh, who won a gold in the SAI meet, is a silver medallist in the 39 kg class at the World Cadet championship last year in New Delhi. He has since switched over to 52 kg. A plus one student of Government School, Bhiwani, he was twice gold winner at the School Nationals and really arrived when he won a gold in the Udaipur junior nationals. His ambition is to win a Asiad medal before he can think of the Olympics.Though late to start, the 19-year-old Virender has impressed his coach in his two-year stay at the hostel. The plus two student was prompted into wrestling, despite a successful stint in basketball, by his brother Jagbir Singh, a Commonwealth gold medallist. He took part in the junior World Cadet championship in the Capital last year but barely managed a sixth position. Subsequent hard work, as the coach put it, brought him a silver in the Udaipur nationals. However, it was the gold in the meet here that has taken his confidence level a notch higher. Now his aim is to win an Olympic medal.Similarly, the 17-year-old Sunil Kumar from the Army Boys Sports Company (Bareilly) looks promising. Hailing from a village near Sonepat, he opted for the Bareilly centre three years ago. In the first year at the centre, he won a silver in the Pune Junior Nationals but finished fourth in the Chittorgarh nationals in the following year. Hard work and perseverance helped him win silver again at Udaipur but a gold here in 56 kg category has boosted his confidence. But, as he admits, he has a long way to go before achieving ``something really bigger.'' And for that, he thinks, the facilities at his centre, like in other places, need improvement.
