The wrestler

World champion arrives,sees,conquers Games gold in a canter

With his right arm wrapped around the South Africans throat in break-neck position,Sushil Kumar ankle-locked his opponent with the free left. He held the demonic pose for about 20 seconds,and then it was all over. Sushil let go of the choke to wave to the crowd,as Heinrich Barnes coughed back air into his lungs.

There wasnt a single seat available at the Indira Gandhi Indoor stadium for Sundays wrestling matches,while snaking queues outside ticket counters were treated to nothing more than locks and shutters. The whos who of diplomats and politicians made their presence felt in their box seats,even as cops and military men forgot about their sentry-posts to huddle around the closest television.

Although the result was a foregone conclusion,clearly,it didnt matter. Hardly anyone had come to witness a closely contested brawl,every soul in the 7000-seater arena knew better than that. Packing the stadium to the rafters,the wrestling fans poured in to collect their only I-was-there-when-Sushil moment. While they watched the Olympics bronze on TV and read about the Moscow Worlds gold in the papers,the Games was going to be their only chance of witnessing the brilliance first-hand.

And Sushil knew these emotions all too well. Hence,he spent more time mingling with the audience or running around the perimeter of the arena draped in the Indian flag,than he did wrestling his opponents on the mat. The first round against Mehrdad Tarash of Australia lasted less than a minute; 45 seconds to be precise. Sushil notched up six points in that duration. Mohammad Salman of Pakistan took Sushil to two rounds in the quarters,but at the cost of a humiliating 10-0 whopping.

Gambian grappler Famara Jarjou lasted exactly five seconds on the mat with Sushil in the semi-finals,redefining the very meaning of blink-and-miss. Within that period,Sushil managed to successfully execute his move,pin the African to the mat and make the referee put an end to his misery. Its almost impossible to imagine the sequence of events in that time frame,but Sushil entered the gold medal round in the stipulated period.

For Sushil and his entourage,a CWG medal doesnt rate as highly as the Worlds,let alone the Olympics. But Team Sushil prepared extremely hard for Delhi because for the first time,wrestling was to be played out in front of home support. To ensure that he doesnt put even a foot wrong,Sushil put in the hours at wrestlings breeding ground,Sonepat. The training lasted 7 days a week,14 hours a day,for nearly two months. While fellow trainees rested,Sushil worked. While the others worked,Sushil punished himself.

It may have paid off when he went on to clinch gold in Moscow,but silent stares and hollow claps followed him to the medal ceremony,diametrically opposite to Sundays finale.

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Three minutes and sixteen seconds was all the packed house got to witness of Sushil in the evening. He toyed around with the Barnes in the opener,earning two points for his playfulness. But on the verge of breaking into a yawn,Sushil unleashed his finishing move,to win his first gold at the Commonwealth Games. The Scotland edition four years later may not have wrestling as an event,but for Sushil and the Indian wrestling fans,it really doesnt matter. Theyve already been there,done that.