Double Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar faces a tough challenge in the form of Narsingh Yadav to qualify for the World Championships, after the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) decided to hold selection trials of the senior grapplers on July 6-7.
The World Championships, which is scheduled to be held in Las Vegas from September 7-12, will also be the first qualification tournament for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Sushil, who had bagged a bronze and a silver in the 66kg men's freestyle category in successive Olympic Games -- 2008 Beijing and 2012 London, was forced to move up 74kg division after the world body FILA re-jigged the weight divisions.
Since Sushil climbed up the weight category, he has competed only twice but on both occasions, he made the nine-kilogram addition look like a cake-walk.
After a successful campaign in the London Olympics, he took a long sabbatical. Having made a comeback in May last year, Sushil, straightaway competed in his new weight category at the Senior International wrestling tournament in Italy and finished with a silver medal. He then followed it up with a gold in the Commonwealth Games at Glasgow in July 2014.
But since then, Sushil has not competed in any tournament for almost a year now, and in his place, Narsingh has been regularly representing India in the 74kg freestyle category.
In the last one year, Narsingh has won quite a few medals for India in various competitions in the absence of Sushil.
The World Championships will provide the largest number of qualification berths with top six wrestlers in each of the 18 Olympic weight categories will qualify their nation for their weight.
The WFI had earlier decided not to hold selection trials for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014 and thus, had paved the way for Sushil and London Olympic bronze medallist Yogeshwar Dutt to make a comeback after a two-year gap with a direct qualification.
WFI's decision did not go down well with some wrestlers and they had moved court against the Federation.
But both Sushil and Yogeshwar won gold at the Commonwealth Games, putting to rest all apprehensions. Yogeshwar has also climbed up the weight category to 65kg from 60kg, in which he had bagged the Olympic bronze medal.
Image: Sushil Kumar.
