How wrestling world championship finalist Anshu’s father saved her spirits excessive after Olympics

On Wednesday night when Anshu Malik, 20, turned the first-ever Indian lady wrestler to enter the ultimate of a World Wrestling Championship with an 11-0 win over 2020 European silver medallist Solomiaa Vynnyk of Ukraine within the 57 Kg class, her father Dharamveer Malik may hardly management his feelings.
Four Indian ladies wrestlers have received medals on the Worlds, all of them being bronze. Geeta Phogat (2012), Babita Phogat (2012), Pooja Dhanda (2018) and Vinesh Phogat (2019) have made the nation proud however Anshu has a chance to go a step forward.
Two-time Olympic champion Risako Kawai is without doubt one of the massive names lacking from the championships, however Anshu received’t have it simple within the last towards Tokyo Games bronze medallist Helen Maroulis of America.
The realisation of what his daughter may pull off has dawned on Dharamveer, who was a supply of power when Anshu returned with no medal from the Olympics.Having represented the Indian junior wrestling staff within the 1990’s, Dharamveer was compelled to retire following a knee damage. He had skilled how crushing failure may be. So Malik made certain his daughter’s shoulders by no means drooped even when issues didn’t go her means.
When Anshu acquired residence from the Tokyo Olympics in August, her first Summer Games, Dharamveer ensured his daughter was welcomed like a champion.
“Whenever I returned from international competitions without winning a medal, I would always feel dejected. But that has not been the case in Anshu’s career. I have always told her that a loss also teaches one something. She has put the loss against the Russian in the Olympics behind her. To see her become the only Indian wrestler to reach the final of world championships makes me a little emotional,” Dharamveer says.

Anshu MALIK 🇮🇳 speaks after changing into India’s first-ever WW finalist at senior World Championships #WrestleOslo pic.twitter.com/ZZvgfVGp3o
— United World Wrestling (@wrestling) October 6, 2021
“It feels good to reach the final here. What I could not achieve in the Olympics, I have achieved here. The time after the Olympic loss was a bit tough as things did not go as I had aimed and could not achieve the level at Tokyo which I had prepared for. I also suffered from an elbow injury and trained in pain during the last one month or so. But my focus was to achieve what I could not achieve in Olympics. I was thinking to give my 100 percent here and fought every bout with this thought. It will be the same in the final against the American,” Anshu advised UWW.
Whichever the color of Anshu’s medal on Thursday, it should get a satisfaction of place at residence. “Her medal will adorn the wall of our house like her other medals,” Dharamveer, who represented India within the World Cadet Championships in 1995, provides.
Hailing from Nidani village in Jind district in Haryana, a spot well-known for producing wrestlers and boxers, a younger Anshu would take to wrestling after seeing her brother Shubham prepare on the CBSM Sports School on the village in 2012.
The Haryana teenager would win a silver medal within the Asian Junior Championships in Taiwan in 2016 and a bronze in World Cadet Championships in Georgia in the identical 12 months. A 12 months later she would win the world cadet title.
Seeing that his daughter had potential, Dharamveer, who owns six acres of farmland, would additionally shuttle between Lucknow and Sonepat, venues of nationwide camps, to be by Anshu’s aspect.

“Whatever I could do, I did for Anshu’s love for wrestling. There were some hard times too but seeing her win would make me forget all those days,” he says.
The teenager would prepare underneath coach Jagdeesh Sheoran on the CBSM Sports School. The coach says she is a fast learner.“During training, Anshu would make mental notes of various moves like Bhandhaj and Kheech apart from Gatta Pakad and would also try minute variations in these attacks,” Sheoran remembers.
She turned the third Indian feminine wrestler to seal the Tokyo Olympics quota with a 12-2 win over Shokida Akhmedova within the Asia Oceania Olympic qualifier at Almaty, Kazakhstan.
But she had suffered a again damage throughout the rating collection in Rome. At Tokyo, Anshu misplaced to double world championship medallist and eventual silver medallist Iryna Kurachkina of Belarus within the first spherical earlier than dropping to Rio Olympics silver medallist Valeria Koblova of ROC 1-5 within the repechage spherical.
The Russian ultimately misplaced to Bulgaria’s Evelina Nikolova within the bronze medal match, a wrestler whom Anshu had defeated earlier in Mattio Pellicone Ranking Series in Rome this 12 months.
“Against Koblova, Anshu had managed to defend till the last minute of the bout. In the last 40 seconds of the bout, letting Koblova make a leg attack cost Anshu. After the Olympics, when Anshu came home, we worked on her leg attacks as well as defence, which she showed in Oslo,” Sheoran says.
On Wednesday, Anshu first scored a 15-5 win over junior world champion Nilufar Raimova of Kazakhstan earlier than scoring a 5-1 win over Asian silver medallist Erkhembayar Davaachimeg of Mongolia to enter the semis. In the semis, Anshu saved the Ukrainian Solomiaa Vynnyk at bay with fixed neck holds, thereby not letting her assault.
Anshu would ultimately win the bout 11-0 on technical superiority. “The way Anshu has avoided getting caught in leg attacks against the likes of Daavachimeg and Vynnyk means that Anshu’s defence has improved. She made good counter moves after defending the leg attacks and did not let counter attacks happen here. Anshu has the advantage of having more power as compared to the American in the final and she will aim to fight with an attacking intent,” shared nationwide coach Kuldeep Malik.
Coach Sheoran too believes that the American wrestler is a bit like Anshu as she too depends on leg assaults. “The American works on the upper body attacks before she makes a quick leg attack to unsettle the opponent,” Sheoran says, hoping his ward stays as much as the duty of taking up a wrestler with Olympic medal pedigree.