Report: Wrestlers from India stopped at Astana airport for carrying injections

India ended the Asian Wrestling Championships with a total of 14 medals and a seventh-place finish.

A few Indian men‘s freestyle wrestlers, who participated at the recently concluded Asian Wrestling Championships had to produce invoices for a bunch of injections they were possessing during their departure from Astana, Kazakhstan. The officers allowed the players to board the flight after confirming that the syringes were not related to banned or prohibited substances.

According to a report in The New Indian Express, at least five Indian men's wrestlers were asked to produce bills after syringes were found in their luggage bags. However, they were late cleared to board the flight back from Astana to India since the needles were not related to any banned substances.

"We had completed the immigration and were queued up for security check when the names of these wrestlers were called out as their luggage bags contained syringes. We carried on with security checks while these wrestlers joined us later after producing bills for the syringes," a source with the team in Astana told the newspaper.

The report further iterated that the wrestlers had forgotten the bills because of which their names were called out. "The problem was they were not carrying the bills. The other wrestlers had the same products but they had the bills. The wrestlers in question had forgotten the bills at the hotel. They then called their hotel and the bills were found in their rooms. They requested the authorities for pictures of the bills and showed them after receiving them on their phones at the airport," the source added.

The team for the Asian Wrestling Championships 2023 was selected by the Oversight committee after the successful completion of the trials. Top wrestlers Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat refused to take part in the trials while Tokyo Olympics silver medallist Ravi Kumar Dahiya missed out due to an injury.

Performance at Asian Wrestling Championships 2023

India finished the continental event in the seventh spot with 14 medals (gold medal-1, silver medals-3, bronze medals-10) across three categories. Aman Sehrawat was the lone wrestler to bag a gold medal in the men’s 57kg freestyle category.