Wrestling’s global governing body United World Wrestling (UWW) has agreed “in principle” to the ad-hoc committee’s request to extend the August 16 deadline for India to submit the final entries for the World Championships.
The Bhupender Bajwa-led committee had written to UWW on July 28 requesting them to push the deadline for sending the squad list to August 26 as India are due to hold trials before finalising the names. UWW responded on Monday, allowing India to send the size of the squad by the initial deadline and the names later.
"We’ve received the response from UWW. It wants us to send entries by number by August 16. Entries by name can be sent later,” Bajwa said.
Another official close to the development said, “This means UWW has agreed to our request in principle. We will send the entries by number soon. The trials can then be conducted by the new WFI dispensation at a suitable date.”
The new Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) office-bearers will be elected on August 12 and the trials to select the World Championships squad will be held under their supervision.
{{/usCountry}}The new Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) office-bearers will be elected on August 12 and the trials to select the World Championships squad will be held under their supervision.
{{/usCountry}}The ad-hoc committee is in the process of preparing a preliminary list, which will include the names of wrestlers. “We are making the list. It will be a full squad, which can be tweaked later,” the official said, without giving details about the names of wrestlers the ad-hoc panel plans to put in the initial squad.
The ad-hoc panel held the trials to pick the Hangzhou Asian Games squad on July 22 and 23. It accepted a request by Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat for more time to be tested, having led the prolonged protests over sexual harassment against the previous WFI president, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. Both have been named in their respective categories for the Asian Games but are expected to prove their form and fitness in the trials for the World Championships. The dates for the trails are yet to be finalised.
The UWW relaxation will also help meet the demand of those wrestlers who took part in the trials last month and wanted a longer gap, to recover and avoid any injury as they will have to cut their weight again, before the fresh trails.
The Asiad trials were held in six Olympic weights. The World Championships trials will have four non-Olympic weight divisions as well.
The World Championships will be held in Belgrade from September 16-24 with competition in 30 divisions —10 each in freestyle, Greco-Roman and women – and 90 qualifying berths for the Paris Olympics.
“We do understand the necessity to conduct trials prior to the event. However, it is important for the organiser to know the number of participants for organisational reasons,” UWW wrote. It referred to its rule for competitions, which says, “between 1 month and 3 days before the start of the style in question, a substitution can be done if a wrestler is injured or out of form.