Sushil Kumar: Not sure of participating in World Championships

According to the United World Wrestlings (UWW) revamped calendar that was released earlier this month, the Wrestling World Championships could be held in December this year in Belgrade, Serbia

The iconic Chhatrasal Stadium in the national capital has resumed operations but wrestlers are yet to do any contact training in the complex as per the government's guidelines for resumption of training. Considering the fact that there are no competitions in the near future due to the coronavirus pandemic, wrestlers and their coaches themselves are not too worried about the individual training that they are having to make do with presently.

According to the United World Wrestling's (UWW) revamped calendar that was released earlier this month, the Wrestling World Championships could be held in December this year in Belgrade, Serbia. 2010 gold medallist and two-time Olympic medal winner Sushil Kumar, however, said that for now, he personally cannot announce any decision on whether he will be participating in the tournament or not.

"It's very difficult to say right now. The situation is same in the country and in the rest of the world. For now the main priority has to be to stay safe from COVID-19 and the rest we will see later," Sushil told IANS. The 37-year-old is one of the wrestlers training at Chhatrasal. "Training has started in accordance with the guidelines of the central and Delhi government.

"I will be training alone separately for a few days," he added.

Chhatrasal had shut down its academy in early March, a day after Delhi had reported India's second death due to coronavirus. Sushil was one of the many wrestlers who stayed in the stadium with no real means to train. "It is impossible to stay fully fit in that situation. But I was doing a few training drills, maintaining at least my basic fitness," he said.

Sushil's coach and the wrestling legend Satpal Singh had on Tuesday had posted a video of a training session which included Olympic qualifiers Ravi Dahiya and Deepak Punia. The grapplers were seen doing individual routine while maintaining social distancing. "Contact training hasn't started yet. For now it's only individual and hopefully we will start contact training in the near future," said Sushil.

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