For a couple of hours on Friday, the Tashkent airport terminal become a warm-up corridor for Anshu Malik and Sonam Malik. During a nine-hour layover earlier than persevering with their journey to Almaty, Kazakhstan, the Indian wrestlers become their sweat-suits – wore a few layers, in truth – and began jogging across the ready corridor.
They sweated buckets, starved themselves for nearly 18 hours, reached their vacation spot at midnight, underwent COVID-19 exams and slept just for a few hours. On Saturday, they wakened drained from the journey, competed – in Sonam’s case, by ache – within the Asian Olympic Qualifiers and sealed their spot for the Olympic Games, to be held in July-August.
For the nationwide champions, the highway to Tokyo was something however clean.
“When they left Delhi on Friday morning, both of them weighed roughly a kilogram above their weight,” Sonam’s father Raj says, referring to the burden classes they compete in – 18-year-old- Sonam wrestles within the 62kg class, Anshu, 19, in 57kg.
It is regular for wrestlers to weigh a kilo or so over their class restrict. Usually, they drop the surplus weight earlier than the weigh-in on the day of their bouts. In Sonam and Anshu’s case, nonetheless, that will have been reducing it too superb.
Congratulations to our girls wrestlers, Sonam Malik and Anshu Malik for successful a quota every in #Tokyo2020. Both have proven outstanding performances within the qualifying matches. I want them the easiest in representing India 🇮🇳 pic.twitter.com/i8hssmMRVb
— Kiren Rijiju (@KirenRijiju) April 10, 2021
The Wrestling Federation of India had booked their flights to Almaty that will attain the vacation spot simply hours earlier than their opening bouts on Saturday. That would have left them with little or no time to chop the surplus weight, and even when they’d’ve by some means managed that, the duty would have left them drained.
“They wore layers of warm clothes and started running at the Tashkent airport. They did not eat anything until after their bout to make sure they were within their weight limit,” Anshu’s coach Jagdish Sheoran says.
Raj provides: “It helped that both were together. They are like sisters, they understand each other that well.”
Foes to pals
Anshu and Sonam are inseparable. Now.
Before they grew to become pals, although, they have been foes on the mat. During their early days, each competed within the 56kg class and confronted off in tournaments twice. In 2016, Sonam beat Anshu at a state-level inter-school meet, and some months later, Anshu exacted her revenge in a state-level cadet meet.
The nature of their rivalry was so fierce that even Sonam and Anshu’s fathers, Raj and Dharamveer respectively, acquired drawn into it.
“A couple of times, even we got face-to-face with each other,” says Raj, who even alleged his daughter Sonam was a sufferer of dishonest. Today, he laughs it off. “It happens sometimes in the heat of the moment.”
By late 2016 although, the rivals have been chosen for a nationwide cadet camp in Lucknow and have been made to share a room. That’s after they grew to become pals, and as their bond grew stronger, the fathers too determined to return to an association.
“It was evident to everyone that these two girls were better than most others,” Sheoran says. “They had become friends too by staying in the camp. So it didn’t make sense to make them compete against each other.”
Sonam Malik phases a surprising comeback, beats top-seeded Kazakh wrestler 9-6 after being 6-0 all the way down to qualify for the #Tokyo2020 #Olympics #wrestling https://t.co/FrWD9DtzMz
— Mihir Vasavda (@mihirsv) April 10, 2021
Raj says the 2 households agreed to place them in two totally different weight classes. “Instead of fighting between themselves for one gold medal, they could win a gold medal each. The decision benefitted both,” he says.
From that second, Anshu and Sonam’s rise has been meteoric: they’ve dominated all ages class proper as much as the senior degree the place they gained their maiden nationwide titles earlier this 12 months.
“It was fate that both of them qualified for the Olympics on the same day,” Raj says.
Playing by ache
Anshu was largely thought of a favorite to clinch the Tokyo quota regardless of the panic attributable to the last-minute journey preparations. The Asian Championship bronze medalist lived as much as the billing, successful every of her bouts by technical superiority, which is by a margin of 10 factors.
It wasn’t so simple for Sonam, whose class was divided into two teams. She defeated Jia Long, a rising Chinese star, in her opening bout, dominated Taipei’s Hsin Ping Pai within the second spherical earlier than staring slowly towards Asian silver medalist and prime seed Ayaulym Kassymova of Kazakhstan.
Kassymova’s warp pace stunned Sonam and earlier than she might even realise, the house favorite had raced to a 6-0 lead whereas the Indian wrestler clutched at her knee and cried in ache. At that second, it regarded prefer it was recreation over for Sonam.
Somehow, although, she ignored the ache and used her immense higher physique power to stage a outstanding comeback, successful 9 factors in a row to settle the matter. As she stepped off the mat, the youngest Indian lady wrestler to qualify for the Olympics burst into tears. Sonam ultimately pulled out of the ultimate towards Long and the extent of her damage is but to be identified.
“She played through pain,” Raj says. “But that’s what Olympics are about, after all. The pain and sweat have only made this achievement sweeter.”
