Rejuvenated Bajrang Punia keen to regain peak form
The Tokyo Games bronze medallist is heading to the US for training ahead of two key events—the Birmingham Commonwealth Games and the Belgrade world championships.
It's been over ten months since Bajrang Punia defeated Kazakhstan's Daulet Niyazbekov in Tokyo to win an Olympic bronze with an injured right knee. The podium finish should have heralded a fresh phase in his career, but what followed was a period of lingering self-doubt and dip in confidence. A long rehabilitation meant he missed last year's nationals, and when he did return at the Yasar Dogu event early this year, he withdrew from the competition. This time, it was his other leg that gave him grief.
“I started to feel there’s something wrong with my body. I didn't feel the power, felt slow and looked beatable,” the 28-year-old said on Saturday in a media interaction arranged by SAI.
While the injury healed, it left deep mental scars. “There were a lot of negative thoughts. I wasn't sure if my body was in sync, and it began to show in my game. I was not sure when to attack or defend; I was hesitant to go all out,” the 65kg wrestler said.
Bajrang has not won an event since the Matteo Pellicone Ranking Series in Rome last year. He missed the Dan Kolov-Nikola Petrov tourney in Bulgaria in February before pulling out before his opening bout in Yasar Dogu. He returned to competition with the Asian Championships silver in April where he appeared slow and laboured in his loss to Iran’s junior world champion Rahmad Mousa Amouzadkhalili in the final. In May, he barely managed to make it to the Commonwealth Games squad in the selection trials after being stretched in both his bouts by young rivals. Earlier in June, he won bronze via repechage at the Bolat Turlykhanov Cup in Almaty, Kazakhstan after losing to Uzbekistan’s Abbos Rakhmonov 3-5 in the first round.
Shaken by indifferent form, Bajrang underwent a series of tests on returning from Kazakhstan. The results of techno-body assessment, functional movement screening body composition analysis and Vo2max tests were encouraging and helped clear the mental cobwebs.
“I compared my 2018-19 results with the new findings and found that my body is in great shape. There is no deficiency. In the last 15-20 days of training, I have noticed some positive differences in my body and wrestling movements. I think I am ready for competition. I want to return to my 2018-19 form,” he said.
“Earlier, people would say my leg defence was weak, but after my recent performances, they were saying my attack has gone weak. All that chatter really bothered me, so it was important to get the tests done and clear the doubts.”
Bajrang will fly to Michigan University for a 35-day stint. The primary objective is to get quality sparring, said the three-time world championships medallist. “I went to that facility before the Olympics and I liked it. There are no distractions when you train abroad. There is a wrestler in the 70kg class and one in the 65kg category who I’ll be mostly sparring with. There will also be wrestlers from Slovenia, Serbia, Italy, etc., so I'll get a good mix.
“There is no specific area in my game that I will be looking to work on in the US. My plan is to sharpen my overall game, be it attack or defence, with the help of some high-quality sparring.”
Bajrang will enter next month's CWG in Birmingham as defending champion and then chase an elusive world championships gold at Belgrade in September. “It is a busy season and I wish to start it with a successful CWG. I am not taking CWG lightly at all. I lost the final in 2014, so you can’t take any opponent lightly in international wrestling.”
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