Gurbinder lone wrestler for Sydney

Gurbinder Singh qualified by luck as the top three wrestlers had already qualified for the Olympics on the basis of their performances in World Championships.

The 22-year-old wrestler from Punjab is being trained by his personal coach Hargobind Singh and chief coach Randhir Singh who will be accompanying to Sydney.

“Of course we are hopeful”, quipped Wrestling Federation of India President GS Mander when questioned on the chances of his winning a medal in the Olympic Games.

Anil Mann is India’s main hope in the five-day event to be inauguarated by Sports Minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa while the closing ceremony will be presided over by Delhi’s Chief Minister Sheila Dixit.

On the exclusion of arch-rivals Pakistan from the meet, Mander said, “In my capacity as the president of South Asian Federation (SAF) Wrestling Federation, I had personally requested Pak officials to send their delegation as an India-Pak encounter is always a crowd-puller but for certain reasons they declined to do so.”

Underscoring the fact that the main target was the Asian Games 2002, Mander said, “We have appointed a foreign coach — Stanlislav Horlo of Belarus — for the freestyle events to prepare our wrestlers for the upcoming Asian Games.”

Mander described as “unfortunate”, expulsion of six top Indian wrestlers from the training camp in Patiala but added “discipline is above all considerations”.

The wrestlers of international repute — Sandeep Rathi, Sajjan Pal, Ramesh Kumar, Rajiv Tomar, Anuj Chowdhary and Palwinder Singh Cheema — were expelled after they reportedly engaged in a bloody brawl at a training camp at the NIS in Patiala in June. They have been barred from competitions till internal and police investigations are completed.

“The whole incident flared from a petty dispute. They were all very promising wrestlers, having won medals in international events. Ramesh Kumar won the gold in World Championship (cadet category) in 1997 in New Delhi”, Mander said.