LAUSANNE, Switzerland – India faces yet another blow to its face in thefield of sports as the United World Wrestling (UWW) has suspended itsmembership and asked all national federations under it to stopcommunication with the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI).
The mandate was issued by the UWW in accordance with the IOC’s censure onIndia for denying visas to Pakistani athletes for the ISSF World Cup heldNew Delhi last month. The IOC had suspended discussions with India forhosting future global events.
In a letter to all national federations, the UWW highlighted India’sresponse was against the central Olympic principle of non-discriminationagainst any athlete, which was akin to the statement released by the IOC.
“UWW recommends to all the affiliated and associated national wrestlingfederations to suspended their discussions or relations with the Indianwrestling federation,” the world body wrote in the letter.
While the UWW said that this is only till Indian government provideswritten guarantee as per IOC’s ultimatum, this decision is so far thebiggest casualty of the earlier IOC order.
WFI president Brij Bhusan Saran Singh said he is yet to see the letter andoffered to comment only after he does so.
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The first big blow will be the hosting rights of junior Asian Championshipswhich was offered to India by UWW-Asia. The tournament was scheduled to behosted in Lebanon from July 9-14.
It remains to be seen to what extent the UWW directive would affect Indianwrestlers.
Six Indians had claimed medals at last week’s Dan Kolov-Nikola Petrovinternational meet in Bulgaria. Bajrang Punia and Pooja Dhanda had wongold, while Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Phogat, Sarita Mor and Sandeep Tomarbagged silver medals.
