Indian wrestling enters the national conversation through two doors. One is decorated with an Olympic medal. The other opens onto a crisis. Between them lies the actual sport—training rooms, weight cuts, domestic trials, junior tournaments, tactical evolution and athletes whose careers unfold almost invisibly. I find that absence more revealing than the familiar complaint that cricket receives too much attention. Cricket is not stealing every camera. Editors are choosing not to learn another sporting language.
The record is substantial enough to justify attention. India’s Olympic wrestling history includes medals from KD Jadhav through Sushil Kumar, Yogeshwar Dutt, Sakshi Malik, Ravi Dahiya and Bajrang Punia. Olympics.com’s account of India’s wrestling medals shows that this is not a one-tournament curiosity. Wrestling has repeatedly delivered at the event by which Indian sport is most harshly judged.
We cover outcomes, not craft
Ask a casual sports viewer why an Indian wrestler won or lost and the answer will usually be strength, courage or stamina. Those qualities matter, but they are not analysis. Wrestling involves stance, hand fighting, level changes, exposure, par terre defence, clock management and an understanding of risk shaped by scoring rules. A wrestler can control most of a bout and lose through one poorly defended action. That is not a collapse of character. It is sport.
Cricket coverage teaches millions to distinguish swing from seam and strike rate from average. Wrestling coverage too often offers patriotic adjectives. The athlete is “gritty” before the bout and “heartbroken” after it. We learn about a difficult childhood, then skip the technique to reach the medal ceremony. Human stories matter, but reducing every non-cricket athlete to adversity is condescending. It implies that we cannot be interested unless suffering provides the plot.
The same laziness appears in domestic coverage. National championships and trials are treated as administrative notices rather than competitions. Yet selection systems affect athletes’ preparation, confidence and livelihoods. Wrestling’s international calendar, maintained by United World Wrestling, provides ample context for explaining rankings and qualification. Indian outlets could build audiences by following a season instead of arriving at the Olympics with a hastily assembled biography.
Women pay the highest price
Women wrestlers face an additional bargain. They are celebrated as symbols when successful and interrogated as social problems when they speak. Their clothes, marriages, families and “boldness” become content. Serious discussion of coaching and federation governance recedes. I want athletes to be able to demand safe institutions without having their sporting identity consumed permanently by the demand.
This requires independent athlete-welfare systems. Complaints involving coaches or officials should not depend on the same hierarchy that influences selection. Safeguarding panels need trained professionals, published procedures, timelines and protection against retaliation. None of this is anti-sport. It is the infrastructure of credible sport.
Media organisations also need specialists. Sending a general reporter for the final two days of a championship guarantees superficial work. A beat reporter builds sources outside federation offices, understands rule changes and notices promising juniors before a medal makes them convenient. That knowledge is not charity toward wrestling. It is journalism.
Attention should become an ecosystem
Sponsors say they require visibility; broadcasters say visibility requires stars; editors say stars require medals. This circle can be broken only by investment before certainty. A modest domestic league, reliably televised nationals, documentary access to training centres and athlete-led digital coverage would give the sport a continuous public life. Not every product must imitate the IPL. Wrestling’s intimacy and speed are strengths.
Schools and universities matter too. Many Indian wrestlers emerge from particular regional cultures and akharas. That pipeline is valuable but narrow. Better mats, qualified coaches and safe changing facilities can broaden participation, especially for girls in cities where traditional akhara access is limited. Talent identification must connect with education so that a failed selection does not become a life sentence.
I also want supporters to tolerate uncertainty. An Olympic medal is an extraordinary outcome, not a minimum service guarantee. Athletes compete against the best-prepared people on earth. When an Indian wrestler loses narrowly, the response should examine the bout, preparation and system rather than demand an apology for national disappointment.
Cricket will remain India’s dominant sport, and I have no interest in scolding people for loving it. My objection is to institutions using public preference as an alibi. Preferences grow through exposure. Broadcasters spent decades explaining cricket, creating appointment viewing and surrounding players with narrative. Other sports receive a fortnight of noise every four years and are blamed for failing to match cricket’s audience.
Wrestling deserves a different compact. Cover athletes when they train, qualify, change weight classes and return from injury. Explain why trials matter. Scrutinise administrators without turning every wrestler into a supporting character in institutional drama. Celebrate medals, but do not make medals the admission ticket to visibility.
The saddest phrase in Indian sport is “overnight sensation”. It usually describes someone who worked for a decade while the rest of us looked elsewhere. Our wrestlers are not appearing overnight. Our attention is. That is the habit I want changed.
