Asian Games 2026: Nitesh Siwach eyes wrestling medal on debut

A 6-month comeback and his father’s dream have carried the young wrestler to his first Asian Games

When the trials for the Asian Games were held, Nitesh Siwach’s father made the journey to watch his son compete in person. Afterwards, he didn’t say much, just one line that Nitesh has carried with him ever since.

“My father told me, there is no looking back; you have to bring a medal at the Asian Games, and after that, at the Olympics and the World Championships too.'” Then he said, ‘This is a very good beginning for you.’ That line has stayed with me since that day,” Nitesh recalls.

For a 23-year-old about to walk into his first Asian Games, it is a line that captures a journey that goes back much further than these trials, one shaped by a promise made long before he ever stepped onto a wrestling mat.

Nitesh’s story with the sport did not begin the way most do. In 2012, he had actually gone to Pratap School to play kabaddi, a sport he enjoyed at the time. It was only once he got there that he found himself surrounded by wrestlers instead, and it was his father, who had always dreamed of his son becoming a pehelwan, who nudged him towards the sport.

“I started wrestling in 2012. See, my father always had this dream that I should become a wrestler. I used to play kabaddi, and I had actually gone to Pratap School to play kabaddi, but we had wrestling there too. Because it was my father’s dream, I got into wrestling instead,” he says.

For two years, Nitesh trained before a knee operation forced him away from the sport. What followed was not a short break. For close to two years, Nitesh stepped away from wrestling almost entirely. His father worked as a milkman, and with his own future in the sport uncertain, Nitesh began helping his father with that work instead, trading in the mat for the daily rounds of a milk delivery route.

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Six months to prove himself

It could easily have been the end of his wrestling story. But somewhere in those two years, Nitesh found himself thinking about the hours he was now spending on his father’s rounds and wondering what might happen if he spent that time back on the mat instead. He went to his parents with a request: give him six months to try.

“I went to my mother and father, to my whole family actually, and I asked them to give me 6 months, let me try wrestling again,” he says.

They agreed, and within that window, Nitesh won a medal at the School Nationals. It was a small result on paper, but for him, it was the moment everything changed direction again.

Building momentum

In the years since, that second beginning has steadily built into something bigger. Nitesh has strung together strong performances at the senior level, winning bronze at the Asian Championships in 2025 and following it up with silver in 2026, a year-on-year improvement that has now taken him all the way to his first Asian Games. A three-week training camp in Uzbekistan in the buildup gave him valuable exposure against high-quality opposition, time he used to sharpen an area of his game he had identified as a weakness.

“The camp in Uzbekistan was great exposure for us; it has given us a lot of confidence that we can perform well at the Asian Games. I specifically worked on my ground wrestling during this camp, and I feel I have become stronger in that area now,” he says.

Beneath the steady progress, though, sits a wait that has quietly built up its own weight. Nitesh has been building towards this Asian Games for three to four years, and he is aware that no wrestler from his weight category has ever won a medal at the Games. It is a fact that sits somewhere between motivation and pressure, and Nitesh does not pretend it doesn’t affect him.

“There is pressure because people say I can win a medal. And there is another pressure on top of that, that nobody in my weight category has done well at the Games before. So somewhere in my mind, I keep thinking, I have to give my hundred percent. But honestly, this kind of pressure can also pull you back a lot. I have waited four years for this, and if I take too much pressure, my performance will drop,” he admits.

Staying grounded through the pressure

What keeps that pressure in check, he says, are the conversations he keeps having with his coaches and with his parents, who remind him that form moves in cycles and that a dip does not define him. Off the mat, Nitesh also has his own quiet method of staying accountable to himself, going back and watching recordings of his own bouts to spot where he is slipping.

“When things are not going well for me, I sit and watch my own videos to see where I am weak, where I am lacking, and where I am making mistakes. I watch every video of my training very carefully and try to fix every small thing I can. I also talk to my coaches, and I talk to my parents, and they tell me, don’t worry, every two or three months your game changes; sometimes you go down, sometimes you come back up again,” he says.

Through the injury, the years away, and now the long wait for this Asian Games, Nitesh says the Inspire Institute of Sport (IIS) has stood behind him, providing for whatever he has needed along the way.

“I am really, really thankful to IIS; whatever I have needed, they have made sure it is taken care of. Whether it is traveling for my training and competitions, my nutrition, physiotherapy, or anything at all, they have always supported me and given me everything I have needed,” he says.

As he prepares to finally step out at his first Asian Games, Nitesh’s thoughts keep returning to the people who have carried him to this point, his parents and his coaches, and the request he has for them is a simple one.

“Please pray for me; I will bring a gold medal home for them. Mein apne desh ka Tiranga lehraunga, aur Rashtragaan bajaunga,” he says.

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