Jagjit Wrestling Academy girls to represent Punjab at nationals

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, March 15

Girls from Jagjit Wrestling Academy (JWA) in Wariana have made it to the national-level wrestling championships going to be held by the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) in Karnataka. All the girls have qualified the state-level competition held on February 27 in Mohali. Notably, Until October 2016, only boys were taught wrestling, but it was only after Sakshi Malik won a medal at the Rio Olympics that the need to start wrestling for girls was finally taken into consideration.

The girls who have qualified for U-17 nationals are Harpreet Kaur (46kg), Amanpreet Kaur, (65kg), both have won gold at state-level competition. For the U-20 category, Amandeep Kaur (62kg) has been selected, a gold winner at the state-level competition. Samanpreet kaur (50kg), who had won a silver, is familiar with the nationals mat as she had stood third in last year’s nationals.

Samanpreet Kaur (17) had recently suffered an injury but her spirits are still high. Daughter of a farmer, she said her brother has been going to Delhi borders in support of the farm stir. “My brother is also a wrestler, these days he is contributing to the movement and I am ready to take on my rivals,” she added.

Seema and Veerpal Kaur, both will play in 57kg category. While Seema had won a gold at the state-level competition, Kaur had won a silver medal.

Anchal (59 kg), Kirti (55 kg), who had won silver and bronze, respectively, have also made it through to the nationals.

The academy was started in the year 2001. The idea of training children was given by former international player Jagjit Singh, who is now posted as ADCP (Headquarters) Jalandhar.

Mandeep Sharma, the international coach, said the girls have practiced really hard and he was hopeful that they would certainly bring laurels to the district.

Rajinder Singh, the academy’s coach, had earlier shared, “There used to be an akhara near a crematorium then and I used to give training to around 30 youngsters. There were no mats back then, we would play on soil. But then, Jagjit sir saw that the players were performing well in the game and in 2014, a proper academy was established at Wariana and there has been no looking back. We are growing,” he said.