Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Pradhan, Kunal

Titel

Yogeshwar Dutt, the Mat Demon of India's Olympic contingent: Yogeshwar Dutt goes to Rio with the legacy of the Akhada but the technique and training of the 21st century

Ist Teil von

• India today. North American edition, 2016-08

Ort / Verlag

New Delhi: Living Media India, Limited

Erscheinungsjahr

2016

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Previous olympics: Bronze at London 2012There is something obviously menacing about [Yogeshwar Dutt] and something oddly delicate. It's perhaps his broad shoulders, chiselled chest and ripped back not quite fitting in with his tiny waist. He's only 5 foot 7 inches, but he's easily the tallest Indian wrestler heading to Rio as the flag-bearer of the only individual sport in which the country has some sort of Olympic legacy.Wrestling has been a way of life in India for centuries. The pehalwans who performed in royal courts were replaced in the modern era by exponents such as Chandgi Ram and Satpal Singh, who ran mud akhadas that preserved the old-world principles of the sport. Chandgi, who died in 2010, won a gold medal in the 1970 Asian Games and participated in Munich 1972, and Satpal, who still trains young aspirants at Delhi's Chhatrasal Stadium, travelled to Moscow 1980 before winning a gold in the 1982 Asian Games.