Vinesh Phogat, India\u2019s medal hope in Asian Games wrestling, feels a lot more needs to be done for athletes if the authorities expect medals at the Olympic Games.<\/p>\n
The two-time Commonwealth Games champion was recently attending a training camp at SAI centre in Lucknow where the facilities, according to her, were not up to the mark.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe quality of food is fine but a lot more change is needed. If you\u2019re talking about Olympics then you\u2019re required to give that kind of facility too. The wrestling hall there was so hot during the summer months that I had a problem in recovering after training. We train hard but when we can\u2019t recover then chances of injury increase,\u201d said the 23-year-old Vinesh.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had knee pain and could\u2019ve had an injury. I also had to skip training at times. There was no electricity at times too. We kept telling the authorities. The Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) takes care of us and they were also angry over why their athletes don\u2019t get proper facilities. They tried to get in touch with the people concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vinesh, who had won bronze at the 2014 Incheon Games, also trained in Hungary and is confident ahead of the Jakarta Games. She says she has filled the gaps with the help of foreign coaches.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy preparation is very good. I went to Hungary for training and have overcome the deficiencies and small mistakes that I was making. To try myself out, I took part in the Spanish Grand Prix where I won gold so I am happy with the result. The result of training in Hungary will show in the Asian Games,\u201d said Vinesh during a send-off ceremony of Indian wrestlers.<\/p>\n
\u201cForeign coaches plan for long term. They plan each day – how to train 10 days before a competition and 20 days after. I planned and discussed what I lacked, discussed power, speed, stamina, strategy. I worked on my speed. My weight category (50kg) is fast and they attack so fast that you don\u2019t understand where they come from and go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vinesh and colleagues will face the toughest competition from Japanese and Chinese wrestlers at the Asian Games but the Indian is prepared for the test.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Japanese are Olympic and world champions, the Chinese are Olympic medallists too. For me, this is no less than an Olympics. Most girls also took part in the Olympics and they will be tough. I am thinking of every bout and have strategised according to the opponents,\u201d said Vinesh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Vinesh Phogat, India\u2019s medal hope in Asian Games wrestling, feels a lot more needs to be done for athletes if the authorities expect medals at the Olympic Games. The two-time Commonwealth Games champion was recently attending a training camp at SAI centre in Lucknow where the facilities, according to her, were not up to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39044,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39043"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39045,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39043\/revisions\/39045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}