Commonwealth Games 2018 gold medallist Rahul Aware will contest in the Asian Games trials after initially snubbing it, as the Wrestling Federation of India has postponed the selection event for the men’s 57 kg category, according to a report in The Tribune.
The original trial was held on June 9, which Aware had skipped because he had wanted an exemption, resulted in a stalemate. Sandeep Tomar, Utkarsh Kale and Ravi Tomar had the same number of wins in the June 9 trial and the three were supposed to compete in a re-trial for the spot on Wednesday.
However, the newspaper reported that the federation has postponed the trial and given time to Aware to prepare for it. The federation had only allowed Sushil Kumar, Bajrang Punia, Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat to skip trials after they had emerged as the only strong contenders in their respective weight categories.
Aware, who had also requested for an exemption, had been snubbed by the federation and was asked to take part in the trials. This isn’t the first time that the 26-year-old had fallen out with the federation. He had skipped a training camp in Georgia in 2016 and was subsequently being left out of the Rio Olympics squad. The federation at that time, had claimed that the Commonwealth Youth Games medallist wasn’t up to the expected standards in international meets.
The wrestler from Patoda then met with Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, president of the WFI, and had sought an approval from the latter to be included in the re-trial. Aware had also sought more time to prepare, as had one of the other contenders, Sandeep Tomar. An official told the newspaper, “The president wants approvals from everyone involved. But since he has given the approval I don’t see others objecting.”