Thaindian News

By Abhishek Roy
New Delhi, Oct 3 (IANS) World wrestling champion and Olympic bronze medallist Sushil Kumar is looking for a medal at the Delhi Commonwealth Games, a gold at that.

“The Commonwealth Games will be special for me, for more reasons than one. Four years ago in Melbourne, I was the reigning Commonwealth champion, but wrestling was dropped from the Games and I lost the opportunity to win a medal,” Sushil told IANS Saturday.

Wrestling has returned to the Commonwealth Games and much has changed for the better for Sushil in the last four years.

From winning a bronze in the 66kg category at the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 to his triumph at the World Championship in Moscow last month, Sushil has established himself as a world class wrestler.

“Now I have an Olympic medal, a World Championship title, but the Commonwealth Games medal is missing. So winning the gold in front of home crowd will be special,” he said.

Sushil said Yogeshwar Dutt (60kg), Anil Kumar (55kg) and 2002 CWG silver medallist Anuj Kumar (84kg) are also medal prospects in the men’s freestyle section at the Delhi Games.

“In the last six-seven years our wrestlers have done well at the international level. So this time in front of the home crowd, we will win more medals than the nine we did in Edinburgh (1970) — our best performance in the Commonwealth Games,” he said.

Of the nine India won, five were gold, three silver and a bronze. In the 2002 Manchester Games, the kitty was six — three gold, two silver and a bronze.

In the run-up to the Commonwealth Games, Indian wrestlers won 19 gold in last year’s Commonwealth Senior Championship in Jalandhar and seven (two gold, one silver and four bronze) at the Senior Asian Wrestling Championship here earlier this year.

“Most of the wrestlers in the team have won medals at the Asian or at the World stage, so I feel winning medals in the Commonwealth Games won’t be a tough task for our wrestlers,” said Sushil.