We did not run away from trials: Vinesh Phogat, Bajrang Punia clarify after Asian Games selection controversy

Vinesh Phogat was joined by Bajrang Punia on the Facebook live.

Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist and Olympian Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat finally broke silence on facing critisism for getting exempted from Hangzhou Asian Games trials through a live session on Facebook. Several wrestlers across different weight categories objected ad-hoc committee's ruling of giving direct entry to Vinesh and Bajrang to Asian Games.

In particular, Antim Panghal, U-20 World Championships 2022 gold medallist, will be on standby even after winning the trials in 53kg category and same is the case in men's 65kg category for Vishal Kaliraman.

While addressing the accusations Vinesh Phogat said, "We are not against the trials. I am not blaming Antim as she is too young to understand the problem. She has all the rights to fight and we too are fighting for our rights. But it doesn't mean we are wrong.

She further added, "We have given 20 years to wrestling. She says I have not practised but I was at the protest site. We are still hungry. We put everything at stake when we were at the peak of our career. We did not run away from trials, we just wanted enough time to train. Take our trials, we have not run away from the country. Someone wins and someone loses but we can’t be given even one-month time to train?," Vinesh added.

Bajrang said they wanted to speak on the issue only after the trials and after the decision of the Delhi High Court order on the petition. The Delhi high court few days back, rejected protesting wrestler's petition on the exemption of Vinesh and Bajrang from Asian Games trials. The fight isn't going to stop here with Antim, 18, set to progress with her petition to the Supreme Court.

Bajrang iterated, "The whole wrestling fraternity can sit together. You answer our questions and we will answer yours. If we are proved wrong, we will quit wrestling."

Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia in their session lambasted Yogeshwar Dutt for taking side of Brijbhushan Sharan Singh. London Olympics silver medallist, Yogeshwar Dutt, was against the ad-hoc committee for giving exemption to certain wrestlers and wanted them to conduct trials for all the weight categories.