The Hindu : Sport / Wrestling : Time to grapple with new rules

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 30, 2004

Sport

Sport - Wrestling

Time to grapple with new rules

By Our Sports Reporter

JIND, DEC. 29. Winning a bronze medal has just got tougher. Come 2005 and the wrestlers will have to grapple with a set of new rules put in place by the World wrestling body, FILA, apparently to make the conduct of championships simpler.

The 51st edition of the Nationals in Nidani, near here, will probably be the first competition in the world to make use of the new rules that come into effect on January 1, 2005. The men's National championship begins on Thursday.

"We want to provide our wrestlers the first hand experience of the new rules here instead of them being ignorant when they participate in international competitions in the coming year,'' said the Organising Secretary, Sukhbir Singh.

There is a distinct shift in the format, which has been framed basically to make the sport television friendly. From the old league-cum-knockout structure, the FILA has introduced direct elimination system with repechage round for all wrestlers who lost against the two finalists.

Then, most importantly, each weight category begins and ends on the same day, meaning there would hardly be any time for the wrestlers to recuperate. The only solace is that the wrestlers would get more breathing time between the bouts. Each bout will be of three rounds of two minutes each instead of two rounds of three minutes, meaning if a wrestler wins first two rounds the bout would end there.

Mixed response

The wholesale change in the rules of the competition method has received a mixed response from the wrestlers. While the new format makes it imperative that wrestlers remain undefeated to be in the final, it is winning the bronze that has become strenuous. Until the two finalists are known, the fate of the others will hang in the balance. Then the fight for the bronze medal starts. All those who lost against the first finalist will play a repechage phase amongst themselves to arrive at one winner.

Similarly, the second bronze medallist is found from among the losers against the other finalist.

The wrestlers are though not too happy with the new system, which has been made-to-the-order for the television viewers.

There was one voice against "tinkering with our sport''. "Anyway our entire championship, for eight weight categories, needed just four days at any level of competition,'' said a wrestler.

"Imagine the plight of a wrestler, who was the last to lose against the eventual finalist. In the repechage round he would have to wait till others are eliminated before he finally knows his competitor for the bronze medal match,'' added another. "His competitor would already be warmed up after may be one or two bouts in the repechage while he would be starting fresh for a match for the medal.''

Injury is another factor that has been redefined. Injury is accepted if only blood is visible otherwise a wrestler may be sanctioned for interrupting the bout. The FILA rule says that under no circumstances may a contestant take the initiative to interrupt the action himself. Also, the referee and the mat chairman have been powered to disqualify the wrestler who deliberately injures his opponent.

This is a subjective power handed to the referee and it would be interesting to see how many of them wield it during the Nationals.

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