Paris Olympics 2024: Wrestling's quota status and how ongoing WFI chaos will hurt the sport

With Paris Olympics a couple of months away, the focus is on qualifying for the Summer Games. With that in mind, wrestlers are putting in the final touches before qualifying tournaments get underway. The first set of qualifiers for the Paris Olympics took place at the World Wrestling Championships in Belgrade, Serbia. From now on, the next qualifiers will come from regional and continental events across Americas, Africa & Oceania, Europe, Asia and a world qualification tournament in May.

From India, only Antim Panghal has qualified for the Paris Olympics. She was one of five wrestlers to qualify in the 53kg freestyle at the World Championships – where she won a bronze medal.

However, as things stand, Panghal, and the remaining Indian wrestlers, will not be competing for the tricolour. With Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) suspended by global body United World Wrestling (UWW) in August last year, Indian wrestlers will compete under the Olympic flag.

“United World Wrestling placed the Wrestling Federation of India under provisional suspension with immediate effect after the Indian body failed to hold an election in due course.

“The UWW Disciplinary Chamber decided on Wednesday that it had sufficient grounds to impose the provisional suspension on the body as the situation in the federation has prevailed for at least six months. The Chamber noted that the absence of a regularly elected president and a board does not comply with the UWW regulations and the conditions for membership.

“The Chamber also considered the protection of athletes after the allegations against the former President of the WFI and the necessity to restore the functioning of the federation as another ground to impose the provisional suspension.

“Wrestlers and their support personnel [individuals with a high-performance, medical or technical role such as coaches, assistant coaches, sports physicians or masseurs] remain authorized to participate in all UWW-sanctioned events. However, they shall do so under the UWW flag,” said a statement by UWW.

Since then, WFI have held long-overdue elections, with Sanjay Singh emerging as the chief, but the entity was suspended by the Sports Ministry within three days. As a result, WFI is once again being run by an ad-hoc panel comprising Bhupinder Singh Bajwa, MM Somaya and Manjusha Kanwar.

Thereafter, UWW sent a letter to the ad-hoc committee and IOA president PT Usha urging co-operation between the Indian Olympic body and WFI “so that the athletes are not prejudiced and are duly entered in international UWW events.” The latter also stated that UWW are waiting for the elections being ratified by the IOA.

Meanwhile, Singh, despite being suspended as WFI president, asked the UWW to immediately lift their provisional suspension.

Regardless, the ad-hoc panel had set a selection policy for Indian wrestlers in November. As per the policy, wrestlers who obtain Olympic quota places for the country will compete against a challenger on 1 June and the winner of that contest will go on to represent India in the particular weight category at the Paris Olympics.

Wrestling at the Paris Olympics will see competitions in 18 weight categories — six each in the men’s and women’s freestyle and six in Greco-Roman.

India can earn 17 more quota places for the Games in Paris in the two tournaments — the Asian Olympic Games Qualifier in Kyrgyzstan in April and the World Olympic Games Qualifiers in Turkey in May. India’s squad for the two Olympic qualifying events will be selected through trials in February, for which Antim Panghal has been exempted.

The selection trials for the two Olympic qualifying tournaments will be open for wrestlers who were part of the Asian Games, the senior World Championships, winners of open trials in U17, U20, U23 categories and all senior nationals and National Games medallists.