New Delhi: The final 4 months have been relatively surreal for wrestler Aman Sehrawat. Since turning into India’s youngest Olympic medallist (at 21 years and 24 days) after beating Puerto Rico’s Darian Cruz in a bronze playoff in August, the soft-spoken teenager was beneath unrelenting highlight, which included receptions, an viewers with the Prime Minister and an look on the favored sport present Kaun Banega Crorepati.
Wrestler Aman Sehrawat poses with the medal in entrance of the Eiffel Tower throughout Paris Olympics. (Doordarshan Sports activities-X)
With the Paris excessive subsiding and athletes slowing returning to coaching, Sehrawat has left for Japan to sharpen his wrestling nous. Primarily based within the famend Nippon Sport Science College in Yokohama for a brief stint, Sehrawat hopes to spar with Paris Olympics gold medallist Rei Higuchi, who handed him a 10-0 thrashing within the Olympics semi-final.
Sehrawat is anticipated to coach there until early December, following which he’s anticipated to go away for Dagestan, Russia for one more coaching stint.
“We were planning to send Aman to Japan early in November but a visa delay meant he could only leave earlier this week. He is still settling in; the idea is to spend some time with Higuchi and his coach,” mentioned Lalit Kumar, Sehrawat’s coach at Delhi’s Chhatarsal Stadium.
The Yokohama facility has lengthy been the conveyor belt of high quality Japanese wrestlers, particularly within the decrease weight divisions, and Indian wrestlers have been eager to coach there. The ladies’s two-time Olympian Anshu Malik had two stints on the invitation-only centre earlier this yr, the second within the lead-up to Paris throughout which she skilled with Japan’s four-time 50kg world champion Yui Sasaki and two-time defending world champion Akari Fujinami (53kg).
The humbling loss in Paris, his coach says, had been taking part in on Sehrawat’s thoughts and he’s eager on understanding the type and strengths of the Japanese wrestlers. “Aman was outplayed by Higuchi and the loss rankled him a lot. He wanted to have a closer look at their training methods to understand their game, so when the opportunity arrived he wanted to grab it,” Kumar mentioned.
“He has trained in Europe, Russia and US before and has grown with each exposure. We hope the trend continues with this Japan trip.”
In Yokohama, Sehrawat might be joined by his sparring accomplice Sagar. Whereas Kumar couldn’t journey along with his ward, he retains tab via common video calls.
“There is no competition coming up anytime soon, so now is the best time to train, regain strength and get back into shape. The 2028 Los Angeles Olympics is firmly in our radar. Aman is determined to change the colour of his medal there,” Kumar mentioned.