Women’s wrestling in India has seen fresh talent emerging in recent times. Four women wrestlers competed at the Tokyo Olympics.
That included strong contender Vinesh Phogat and young sensations Anshu Malik and Sonam Malik. None could win a medal. On the other hand, two of the three male wrestlers (Bajrang Punia and Ravi Dahiya) won medals.
A change in the coaching staff for women was thus on the cards. The women’s team has a new chief coach in Jitender Yadav, who will take over from the long-standing Kuldeep Malik.
The national camp is scheduled to begin this week in Lucknow. The ranking series in Istanbul from February 24 is scheduled as the first event for the wrestlers in a busy season.
Yadav is a former national level wrestler from Services who has had a long coaching stint with the Air Force and junior India teams and in Pro League Wrestling. The 48-year-old says his focus will be to further develop the power-based style of Indian wrestlers while working on the technical nuances.
“I have been tracking each and every sub junior, junior and other domestic tournaments for years and I see immense potential in women’s wrestling. The competition at the domestic level is big,” says Yadav.
“We need to focus on our strengths. I have spoken to some of the top wrestlers who went to Europe for training and they said they focused too much on technical wrestling, which proved to be a disadvantage. Our wrestling is power-based and we should never forget that. We have to build our strength and endurance and keep polishing the techniques.”
Yadav is not averse to wrestlers opting for personal coaches—a new trend in Indian wrestling—but not at the cost of attending national camps.
“Individual coaching is important in wrestling. If someone needs personal attention, a plan will be made with inputs from the federation looking into the objectives, how much time she needs to train abroad, etc. But it should not be that the wrestler is out of the national camp for long durations.
She should spend a sufficient amount of time with the team and at the camp. Group training and sparring with different partners is also an important part,” he says.
“It is also important to see where the wrestlers want to go for training. We can learn from top wrestling nations like Japan, China, USA.” Yadav said his immediate focus will be the ranking series in Istanbul and then the Asian Championships in Mongolia starting on April 19.
“I want to take small steps. I have to see the fitness levels of the wrestlers and how they perform in these events. Once these two tournaments are over, we will concentrate on Commonwealth Games and Asian Games.”