The national camp for senior men and women wrestlers will start on February 9 in Sonepat and Patiala respectively and run until the Paris Olympics, the Indian Olympic Association-appointed ad hoc committee announced on Monday. The camp will be preceded by the senior nationals in Jaipur from February 2-5, as announced on Saturday.
“Following the conclusion of the Senior National Championships, the National Coaching Camp (NCC) will be conducted. The men’s camp (both Greco Roman and freestyle) will be stationed at SAI NRC Sonepat, while the women’s camp will be held at SAI NSNIS Patiala. The NCC will select medallist wrestlers from 30 weight divisions across senior freestyle, Greco Roman and women’s categories (of the nationals),” a note from the ad hoc committee said.
The thrust of the national camp will be to prepare the wrestlers for the Olympic qualifying tournaments. These include the Asian Qualification Tournament scheduled in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan from April 19-21, and the World Qualification Tournament in Istanbul from May 9-12. The camp will also help prepare for the Asian Championships, which will also be held in Bishkek, from April 11-16.
“We wanted to begin the camp as soon as possible and we consulted over 100 wrestlers for the same. Most wanted the camp to begin after the nationals,” an offical in the know of things said. “By then, the wrestlers who will travel to Croatia for the Zagreb ranking series (Feb 1-5) will be back, so it is an ideal time to begin the camp.”
Sanjay Singh, president of the suspended Wrestling Federation of India (WFI), though declared that he will organise parallel nationals, insisting that he does not recognise the ad hoc panel. The three-member committee, formed by IOA under direction from the union sports ministry, is headed by Wushu Association of India president Bhupender Singh Bajwa with 1980 Moscow Olympics hockey gold medallist MM Somaya and former international badminton player Manjusha Kanwar.
“How will they (ad hoc panel) organise nationals if our state associations will not send the teams? We will organise our national championships soon. We are soon calling the executive committee meeting. The notice of the EC meeting will be sent in a day or two and we will have the nationals organised before they do,” Singh was quoted as saying by PTI.
“We had sent our explanation to the ministry that we have not flouted any rules. We are still awaiting a reply. We will wait for a day or two. If they do not want to engage with us, we are also not interested,” said Singh, who has claimed he was ready to challenge the suspension in court.