The Ranking Series will take place in Gonda, Uttar Pradesh, from May 10-12 and will mark her return since her retirement U-turn last year.
Decorated wrestler Vinesh Phogat breathed a sigh of relief on Tuesday after the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) confirmed that the two-time World Championships medallist was already cleared to compete in next month’s National Ranking Series.
WFI president Sanjay Singh clarified that the body had never objected to Vinesh’s participation in the domestic tournament and contradicted reports of blocking her application for the event. The Ranking Series will take place in Gonda, UP, from May 10-12 and will mark her return since her retirement U-turn last year.
“We never blocked her request for any participation,” the WFI chief told DH.
. “Vinesh and some other applications were cleared last night (Monday) after we learned some of the wrestlers struggled to submit their forms. She could have approached us first if she had any trouble. All this was needless.”
Vinesh, meanwhile, took to social media to claim that her registration was cleared on Tuesday morning after she couldn’t complete it Monday night, after she found the link had been closed.
“My registration to participate in the upcoming ranking tournament was done this morning. I could not complete the registration yesterday as the link was closed. Thank you for the support from everyone. I am looking forward to competing in my first competition after 20 months,” tweeted Vinesh.
Sanjay, however, shared a copy of the wrestlers’ accepted application with DH where the time stamp showed acceptance on Monday night.
As reported earlier, the 2018 Asian Games Champion is unlikely to compete in this year’s Asiad in Japan as WFI’s selection policy mandated participation in last December’s National Championships in a circular earlier this year.