For a week in July last year, wrestler Nisha Dahiya couldn’t eat, surviving only on liquids after a fractured collarbone caused severe swelling around her neck. The injury during the Asian Games trials, months after she had won a silver at the Asian Championships, kept her almost bedridden for two months. It took another couple of months for her to get back to training on the mat.
“I told myself: bahut kam din bache hai Olympics mein (there is little time left for the Olympics), I won’t leave anything to chance to get there,” said Nisha.
She did get there, sealing her spot for the Paris Games starting this month at the World Qualifiers in May. In a career hampered by several untimely injuries, paused by a two-year doping ban from 2017-19 and headlined by a case of mistaken identity that announced to the world she was dead in 2021 (it was another wrestler by the same name), the Olympics were a dream the 68kg wrestler had been desperately waiting to live.
To the extent that the first thing she did after returning from the Asian Olympic Qualifiers in March — she couldn’t get the job done there — was to write down the name of every wrestler in her weight category who was yet to qualify and could potentially come her way at her last shot.
“I prepared for each one of them and saw their videos,” Nisha said. “So, I had the belief deep inside that I will qualify. The Olympics have been a big dream, and the fact that I’m getting an opportunity now… I will do something worthwhile there.”
That dream was born a decade ago, much after she’d picked up wrestling as a means to escape studying and before Sakshi Malik became her mentor, friend and training partner in Rohtak. Back home for a quick visit to her village Adiyana in Haryana, an ill Nisha headed to the village’s market to grab medicines. Seated there was her uncle, watching on TV Sakshi win the silver medal at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
“My uncle looked at me and said, “one day, you also have to win medals like that”. At that point I thought “this is too big for me”. But that day I realised the value of a medal from such events.”
Medals started trickling in as Nisha’s career progressed — bronze at the 2021 U-23 World Championships and the Asian Championships silver last year. There may well have been more if not for injuries, which have remained a constant. A knee injury while leading in her bronze medal bout at the 2022 World Championships opened old scars (she had recovered from an ACL tear months earlier) and placed her back into months of rehab. Then the collarbone fracture suffered in the first round of the Asian Games trials sidelined her. It needed the constant presence and support of her physio from Reliance Foundation for even the basics.
Nisha has seen plenty of such despairing days, through which the hope that good things are around the corner keeps her going. “I love making comebacks. And then when you look back at those days when you felt bad, cried and were in pain, you feel even better about how far you’ve come.”
The latest comeback kicked off in October last year when she moved to the Inspire Institute of Sports and began training with Iranian Amir Tavakolian, the 2000 Sydney Olympian turned coach. Until then, Nisha had spent years training with Sakshi but with the 2016 Games medallist engaged during the wrestlers’ protests and eventually leaving the sport, Nisha “couldn’t train properly without her in Rohtak”.
“I’ve improved a lot working with Amir,” she said. “I am good at attacks, but I get a bit flustered with defensive moves. I worked a lot on that, and saw the improvement during the qualifiers with the way I could control opponents. Mentally too I’ve become a lot stronger.”
Not that Sakshi is completely out of the picture. Even as most other Indian wrestlers returned to India, Nisha chose to camp in Hungary last month and sparred with other Paris-bound wrestlers of the world. Sparring with them helped her get rid of the “little hesitancy” she had about fronting up with them, even though she didn’t like being there the first few days. The food and weather made her feel “a bit down”, until she dialled Sakshi.
“Sakshi di told me, “This is how we feel initially. It’s natural because you aren’t used to training abroad. Give it a few days and you will feel better. Just keep enjoying and training hard”,” Nisha said.