New Delhi, Aug 12: The national federation is not pleased that four Indian women wrestlers could not take advantage of a weak field at the recently-concluded Commonwealth Games and missed out on gold medals.
All 12 Indian wrestlers won medals at the Games, returning with six gold, a silver and five bronze. From among women, only Vinesh Phogat and Sakshi Malik won gold while Anshu Malik, who was also a gold medal favourite, returned with silver in 57kg category. Pooja Gehlot (50kg), Divya Kakran (68kg) and Pooja Sihag (76kg) settled for silver despite a thin and weak field.
In the 50kg category, only six wrestlers competed. Pooja lost her bout to Canada’s Madison Bianca Parks before winning the bronze play-off.
The 76kg category had eight wrestlers while the 68kg class featured nine wrestlers, where minnows like Bangladesh, Mauritius, Cameroon, Tonga and New Zealand were part of the field.
“It was not a great show by our women wrestlers. If you are not winning such a weak field, what it reflects on your performance,” said one official of the WFI. “We are going to sit with the wrestlers and review the performance. India is certainly a powerhouse in CWG but I don’t think it reflected properly in our results,” the official added. (PTI)
