As Anshu Malik lay on the mat disconsolate, holding her left elbow and shoulder after the loss by fall towards Helen Maroulis within the ladies’s 57 kg last on the earth wrestling championships at Oslo, her American opponent commiserated her, patting her again. Though the 20-year-old Indian had misplaced the bout—lacking out on changing into India’s first girl world wrestling champion, and the second from her nation after Sushil Kumar—she had already made historical past.
No Indian girl had ever reached the summit conflict of a World Wrestling Championship, nobody has even come shut; even within the males’s class, simply 5 have progressed this far into the Worlds. The journey, the heartbreaks and setbacks she endured to succeed in the place she did, is a heartwarming narrative in itself.
The psychological agony of defeat within the repechage in Tokyo lingered. She endured bodily ache too. According to father Dharamveer Malik, she had carried an elbow damage, which she had sustained in Tokyo, into the event, apart from injuring her knee within the quarterfinals. Hence, he says, “This silver is like a gold medal for us.”
“Anshu fought bravely. Despite suffering an elbow injury in Tokyo Olympics, she trained at the village followed by training in the national camp. We hope her elbow injury has not worsened,” he provides.
Her mom Manju, who watched the ultimate with out batting an eyelid, concurs along with her husband: “Silver bhi gold ke jaisa hai.” In the following few days, she could be bust making ready her favorite candy, ‘gond ke ladoo’. “It’s good for muscles recovery and she can have as many she likes,” she says.
Confident begin
Her opponent within the last, Haroulis, was an enormous fish—champion in Rio and a bronze medallist in Tokyo. The teen, who has by no means confronted the seasoned American in her quick International profession, started with confidence by thwarting the American’s makes an attempt to seize her neck. She survived a detailed leg assault too within the opening exchanges.
Anshu tried to tire her adversary, which labored because the Haroulis acquired a passive play warning. She failed to attain and Anshu bought her first level of the ultimate. The first half ended with Anshu main 1-0.
But the American modified her technique within the second. She tried gripping Anshu’s injured left elbow and succeeded, notching two factors inside 45 seconds. She then snatched Anshu’s shoulder, scoring two extra factors. Then got here the sucker punch, as she pulled her shoulder absolutely to the mat, leading to Haroulis’s win by fall.
Coach Jagdeesh Sheoran, who had initiated Ansu into wrestling on the CBSM Sports School at Nidani in 2012, had anticipated her to be faster within the second half. “I expected Anshu to be a bit quicker in the second half but the American was quick to attack her left elbow and once she got hold of it, it was tough for Anshu to make a comeback. If not for the injury, she could have wriggled out of that grip and survived the fall,” he defined.
But the silver displays the speedy, and decisive, strides she had made in her sport. It was not only a one-off efficiency. The final 12 months has seen Anshu scoring wins over the likes the of world championship bronze medallist and eventual Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist Evelina Nikolova of Bulgaria within the Mattio Pellicone Ranking Series in Rome other than beating two-time European bronze medallist Alyona Kolesnik of Azerbaijan and European bronze medallist Veronika Chumikova.
The confidence of the teen from Nidani, Sheoran believes, will skyrocket. “In the last 20 months, she has scored six wins with a margin of ten points and the way she scored wins over Linda Morris and Grace Bullen early in her career gave her a lot of confidence. During the 11-6 win over Evelina Nikolova at Rome prior to Tokyo, Anshu made her tire and then went for leg and side attacks. Wins against such wrestlers make her more confident in trying the moves she has mastered in practice. The coming months will see a different Anshu,” provides Sheoran.
Bronze for extra
On the sidelines, 25-year-old Haryana wrestler Sarita Mor gained bronze within the ladies’s 59kg class with an 8-2 win over Sweden’s Johanna Lindborg and have become the sixth Indian feminine wrestler to win a medal on the world championships.
“The more our wrestlers win medals at world championships, the hungrier they will be for further success. Seeing Anshu create history here and Sarita winning the bronze means our wrestlers are not lesser opponents. We will work to iron out the flaws. We need more training and these medals will add to our confidence a lot,” stated nationwide coach Kuldeep Malik.
