Defiant Narsingh Yadav still harbours hopes of competing at Tokyo Olympics, after a year in wilderness

Two years ago, Narsingh Yadav found himself staring himself at a metaphorical dead end. Competing in the bronze medal play-off at the 2015 World Wrestling Championships in Las Vegas, the then 26-year-old was trailing by eight points against France’s Zelimkhan Khadjiev with just 40 seconds left on the clock and qualification for Rio Olympics slipping away.

That’s when the Mumbai lad pulled off a little-known move called dhak, which entails holding your opponent by the head before flipping him over and then pinning him to the floor. The move, considered too risky a manoeuvre, is seen more at dangals and akhadas around the country rather than at international events.

The move helped Narsingh win the match by a fall and set in motion the now infamous tug-of-war between him and two-time Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar over the Rio quota.

As fate would have it, Narsingh was given the go-ahead to compete at the Olympics by the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI), but could not after testing positive for prohibited substances which earned him a four-year ban from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Narsingh’s claim, that his food was spiked by a ‘rival’, led to the CBI opening an inquiry into the event. While the investigating agency is still looking into the matter, the grappler hasn’t lost hope of making a comeback to the sport and trains continuously, having set his sight on the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.

“I still train regularly and haven’t made a lot of tweaks in the way I train. I’m sure I will get justice sooner rather than later. I want to do well at the Tokyo Olympics. I was close to a medal in Rio because I had beaten the eventual medal winners in my weight class earlier. I hope justice prevails for me,” Narsingh told reporters at the launch of the KD Jadhav Memorial Kushti Championship in the city on Friday.

On being asked when the CBI was likely to conclude its enquiry, the wrestler said he had not been given any date whatsoever by the investigating agency. He added that he had not been in touch with the WFI, which had been accused in some quarters of favouring him, over his case. “The inquiry in the case is going on, the decision will come whenever it has to. I will wait for the outcome.”

Narsingh, who claims his food was spiked with a banned product at Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) Sonepat campus, called for better security for players at sports institutions in the country.

“Government should put more focus on security where players are training so that such a thing does not happen to any other player.  Wherever national camps are held, more security should be given because a player gives his best to win a medal for the country,” he said.

Sangram Singh, the brains behind the KD Jadhav Memorial Kushti Championship, which is to be held in Mumbai in December, also invited Narsingh to take part in a bout at the event.

While the 28-year-old did not commit to taking part, he said him competing at the event despite his ban would not be an issue since the event is not recognised by WFI, which oversee the sport in India.

“I am player and I can participate anywhere. Since this is a private tournament it wouldn’t be a problem,” he said.

In the meantime, the wrestler has been also training his wife Shilpi Sheoran at SAI’s Mumbai campus. Shilpi was part of the Indian contingent which travelled to France last month to compete at the World Championships. The Indian contingent returned home empty-handed with Shilpi losing to Mongolia’s Orkhon Purevdorj in the first round of the women’s 63 kg weight class. She got another opportunity to win a bronze in the repechage round, but Sweden’s Henna Johansson inflicted a fall on her in 55 seconds.

Despite India’s meek show in France, Narsingh predicted that Indian wrestlers could get more medals at Tokyo then then ever have at a single Olympics.

“Sakshi Malik’s medal is a good thing for wrestling, Indian wrestling is looking good now. We will get three or four medals in wrestling in Tokyo.”

Whether Narsingh, who at 30 will be past what is considered as the peak age of a wrestler in 2020, himself will be able to make the journey to Tokyo for the mega-event remains under doubt. As things stand, his wrestling career seems to be staring at a dead end. He needs fate to do a dhak move.