Talking to media persons here on Wednesday, Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) President Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh said that it obligatory on our part to invited the grapplers from all the affiliated countries of the continent for this championship.

"It is mandatory for WFI , as a host to invite them because the championship is also a part of Olympic qualifier tournament," he said.

“United World Wrestling, (UWW) has made it clear to WFI that no visa problem should be there as this is a mandatory tournament. When we are allotted a tournament, we have to give them the assurance that no country will be denied participation by us." Brij Bushan Sharan Singh said.

"We have requested the external affairs ministry to ensure that visa is granted to wrestlers from Pakistan as well. He said adding “I met the foreign minister S.Jaishankar today and I’m extremely hopeful there will be no problem.”

“The minister has assured me that there will be no problem. After the discussion I don’t think there is going to be any problem.”

The Chinese Wrestling Association has written to the WFI, requesting them to help out with the participation of their wrestlers in the championship.

"It is an Olympic year and Asian qualifiers are also there. So we don’t want to take any risk that will hurt our wrestlers in an Olympic year," he added.

Further elaborating WFI chief said" the Chinese wrestlers will have to go through the protocol set for the virus detection. All the wrestlers who will participate will go through all the precautionary measures,”
He also made it clear that no wrestler can refuse to fight with their Chinese rivals, if the Chinese are found to be unaffected by the virus.

“This problem is only in one or two cities in China and not the entire country and if the wrestlers go through all the tests in China and then again clear the tests by our government then no player can say she or he has come from here and we won’t fight with them.”

The WFI chief also said that India is willing to host the Asian Olympic Qualifiers if the event which is being moved out of China in wake of the Coronavirus spread. “ Due to Coronavirus, the Asian Olympic Qualifiers which were earlier scheduled to take place in China from March 27-29, will be moved out to some other country. Given a chance, we will host the Asian Olympic Qualifiers in India.”

Talking about India's prospects WFI president said "I am hopeful of five gold medals. We have high expectations from Bajrang Punia, Vinesh Phogat, Anshu Malik, Ravi Dahiya and Deepak Punia to win gold medals in the Senior Asian Wrestling Championships.”

“We also expect India to win four medals in in Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games wrestling competition,” added Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.

Bajrang and Ravi Dahiya have been impressive with their performances at the UWW World Championships 2019, where both have won bronze medals. The duo has returned with and gold in the Rome Ranking series this year. Deepak Punia though was eliminated in the first round at Rome even after securing a silver in the World Championships last year.

Vinesh Phogat has already secured a berth in the Tokyo Olympic Games with her World Championships bronze medal. All eyes in New Delhi will be on Anshu Malik, who had secured silver in the Rome Ranking Series 2020.