Sakshi, India's only woman wrestler to win Olympics medal, quits sport in protest

NEW DELHI: In the end, a pair of wrestling boots – light blue and long-laced – sat forlornly on the table. Alone, it said so much more after all the words were spoken and the microphones were gathered and stowed away, serving a poignant reminder of the struggle the Indian women wrestlers stoically carried out all year on the streets of the Capital. The wrestling blue belonged to Sakshi Malik – India's only woman wrestler to win an Olympic medal. Teary-eyed, on Thursday, Sakshi was announcing her shocking retirement from the sport, hours after Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh's loyalist, Sanjay Kumar Singh, got elected as the new president of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) here on Thursday.

Expressing her displeasure at the outcome of the electoral process, which saw 13 of Singh's men win the 15 posts contested, Rio Olympics bronze medallist in women's 58kg category, 31-year-old Sakshi – while addressing a press conference alongside Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat – put her wrestling shoes on the table in a room packed with mediapersons at the Press Club of India (PCI) and said she was quitting the sport in which she won her first international medal - silver at the 2009 Asian Junior World Championships in 59kg freestyle - at the age of 17.

Sakshi was furious that a candidate backed by the outgoing WFI chief Brij Bhushan, who has been accused of sexually harassing six female wrestlers, was elected as the federation's new chief. "Yeh ladaai dil se ladi hai (We have fought this fight from our hearts). We slept for 40 days on the roads and a lot of people from several parts of the country came to support us. We wanted a female president but that did not happen. If Brij Bhushan's business partner and a close aide is elected as the president of WFI, I quit wrestling right now," she said and left the venue, tears rolling down her cheeks. She had last competed at the Birmingham CWG last year, where she had won the gold medal in the women's 62kg category.

When Brij Bhushan was asked about Sakshi 's decision to quit, he said he had nothing to do with it and ruled out any vendetta politics against any of the protesting wrestlers. "All wrestlers will get support from the WFI. There will be no partiality and vendetta politics. A lot of wrestlers sat on dharna but no one will be singled out on that basis. We have to look after the game and not the mistakes of the wrestlers," he said.

Ahead of the election, Tokyo Games bronze medallist Punia and Sakshi had requested sports minister Anurag Thakur to stop anyone associated with Brij Bhushan's camp from contesting the WFI polls. In June as well, the group of protesting wrestlers had met union home minister Amit Shah at his residence with the same demand. Consequently, neither Brij Bhushan's son Prateek nor son-in-law Vishal Singh entered the fray.

However, the wrestlers felt betrayed by the election of Singh and his panel. "It's unfortunate that the government did not stand by its word that no Brij Bhushan loyalist will contest the WFI election. With Sanjay Singh becoming president, I don't think women wrestlers will get justice because back door politics is still on to break their resolve. About 15-20 girls met with the sports minister and told him about the exploitation and today they are down to just six and they too are being coerced to pull out," said Bajrang, adding that he is also not sure if he wants to continue his career.

Vinesh said, "Upcoming women wrestlers will also face exploitation. Bajrang and I had also met the home minister and we clearly told him the names of the female wrestlers and what had happened to which wrestler. We urged him to look into it. He assured us that he will look into it. We are sad that people like Sanjay Singh are getting the top position. Making him president means the coming generation of women could well suffer exploitation. What happened behind the curtain will now happen in the open now. I don't know how we will get justice in our country. The future of wrestling in this country looks dark."


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