United World Wrestling lifts suspension of Wrestling Federation of India

UWW had placed the WFI under provisional suspension on August 23 last year after the Indian body failed to hold an election in due course. The UWW Disciplinary Chamber decided that it had sufficient grounds to impose the provisional suspension on the body as the situation in the federation prevailed for at least six months.

"The UWW Bureau met on February 9 to review the suspension among other topics and considering all the elements and information, it decided to lift the suspension under the following conditions," UWW stated in an official statement.

"The WFI has to re-convene the elections of its Athletes' Commission. The candidates for this commission shall be active athletes or retired for no longer than four years. The voters shall be exclusively athletes. These elections shall take place during trials or any senior national championships where this operation can take place, but no later than July 1, 2024," the statement further read.

According a the statement, the WFI has to immediately provide UWW with written guarantees that all wrestlers will be considered for participation without any discrimination in all WFI events, in particular trials for the Olympic Games and any other major national and international events. This non-discrimination includes the three athletes who protested against alleged wrongdoings by the former President.

UWW remains in touch with the wrestlers and will follow up with them in the coming days.

"This also means that Indian wrestlers will be able to compete under their country's flag at the next UWW event. Under the suspension, the Indian wrestlers had to compete under a UWW flag," the statement added.

India's wrestling has seen a major shift since the conclusion of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) elections. Sports Ministry suspended the WFI body three days later after the newly elected WFI president Sanjay Singh announced the hosting of the U-15 and U-20 nationals at Nandini Nagar in the Gonda district of Uttar Pradesh by the end of the last year.

Following this, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) announced Bhupinder Singh Bajwa as chairman of the newly created ad-hoc committee to run the day-to-day matters of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) with immediate effect.

After Singh's victory in the WFI elections, emotional Sakshi Malik broke down as she left the venue announcing her retirement from wrestling while addressing a press conference in the national capital. Later, Olympic medalist Bajrang Punia and World Championship medalist Vinesh Phogat also returned their government honours. (ANI)