Aditya eyeing Olympics berth

Deepankar Sharda

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 21

Aiming to represent India in the Olympics, wrestler Aditya Kundu was working on reducing his weight until the Covid pandemic threw his plans haywire.

The 23-year-old Greco-Roman wrestler, who won a bronze medal in the 72kg class at the recently concluded Asian Championship in New Delhi, intends to bring down his weight to 67kg, which is an Olympics category.

“I planned to reduce my weigh to 67kg so that I can fight for the Olympics quota. I had two tournaments lined-up before appearing for the trials, but due to the Coronavirus spread all the tournaments have been postponed,” said Kundu, who trains at Gulzar Wrestling Akhara under his father Ranbir Singh, a former Sports Authority of India coach.

Kundu drubbed Nao Kusaka of Japan 8-0 to claim the bronze medal in the Asian Championship and the grappler said he was confident of carrying forward his form in the coming tournaments.

“The recent performance in the Asian Championship was satisfying, and I was confident of the carrying it forward. But since the tournaments have been postponed, I will now focus on reviewing recordings of my previous bouts,” said Kundu.

“I cannot stick to this (72kg) weight for long and since there is no place to practice at the moment, I am trying to train at home. I believe there will be a tough competition in the 67kg category and I have to be prepared, both physically and mentally,” said Kundu, who works as an inspector in the Punjab Cooperative Society.

Kundu had earlier won the gold medal in the Commonwealth Championship in South Africa, besides topping the national and All India Inter University championships. However, the youngster said he never thought of becoming a wrestler until his father pushed him into the sport.

“I had never thought of becoming a wrestler until my father pushed me into it. It was not easy to be coached by him, especially keeping in mind his dual role in my life,” revealed Kundu, who started as a free-style grappler.

“After winning the gold medal in the inter-university championship, I was down with a knee injury. I was not able to put too much stress on my legs which made me to shift to Greco-Roman,” he said.