Shivanee Pawar, an Asian Championships bronze-medal winning wrestler, had hoped to begin her 2025 season at either the Zagreb Ranking Series in Croatia in early February or at Muhamet Malo Ranking Series in Albania later this month. However, the 26-year-old wrestler missed both tournaments because of reasons beyond her control — the long-standing administrative tussle between the federation and the government.
“It is stressful as a wrestler. For the past two years, there have been hardly any competitions at the national level. We are just practicing and not competing enough,” Shivanee said.
Indian wrestling is currently caught in an administrative mess because the United World Wrestling recognises the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI), but the sports ministry has not lifted its suspension first imposed in December 2023. On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court had pulled up the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) because of its failure to reconstitute an ad-hoc committee for running the WFI. In August last year, the court had said the IOA’s decision to dissolve the ad-hoc committee was not in line with the Union sports ministry’s order suspending the WFI.
