Antim Panghal, first Indian to win U-20 World Wrestling Championships twice, is on fire

Antim Panghal won gold in the 53kg Women’s Freestyle at the 2023 U-20 World Wrestling Championships in Jordan. (Photo via Twitter)

Everything has gone wrong in Indian wrestling. Everything seems to be going right with Indian wrestling. On August 18, the Indian U-20 women’s squad made history by finishing atop the overall medal tally at the U-20 World Wrestling Championships in Amman, Jordan. It’s the first time India has finished as the top wrestling country in a tournament, winning seven out of 10 medals in the women’s events—three golds, a silver, and three bronzes. The incredible performance meant that India left behind wrestling powerhouses like Japan and USA.

Antim Panghal (second from left). (Image via Twitter/SAI Media)

Overall, Indian wrestlers won 12 medals in 30 categories—the only male wrestler to win gold was Mohit Kumar in 61kg Freestyle—an unprecedented domination.

How did the wrestlers do it? There has been no wrestling federation in India for months now, its former head, the BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh embroiled in sexual harassment allegations, its biggest stars spending months out on the streets protesting against Singh, no national training camps, no tournaments, no roadmap, and no national coach of repute to lead the elite teams.

However it was done, the unprecedented four golds gives Indian wrestling a glimpse of its health and its future stars—Antim Panghal in 53kg Women’s Freestyle, Savita Dalal in 62kg Women’s Freestyle, and Priya Malik in 76kg Freestyle, along with Mohit.

Each of these young wrestlers has been consistently winning medals at international age-group events, but the name that stands out the most is Antim Panghal. The wrestler from Hisar, who just turned 19, is on fire. There’s nothing she can’t do. This is her second straight U-20 world title, making her the first Indian wrestler to win two U-20 world titles. In her very first outing at the senior level—even before she has competed at the senior nationals—Antim won a silver medal at the 2023 Asian Championships in April.

Every time she steps on the mat, she dominates. At the Asian championships, she swept through the field till she was defeated in the final. An anomaly in her fledgling career, and an important lesson in what it takes to transition from the junior to the elite level, and the value of experience in a combat sport.

At the Amman U-20 Worlds, Antim blazed like a wildfire through her field—just like she had done last year. First bout, she racked 10 points without a reply from her Polish opponent in just over a minute. Even though her Chinese opponent in the next fight managed to take the battle to round 2, she was no match for Antim’s ruthlessness. In the semi-final, her Russian opponent, fighting under an independent banner, had little clue where the attacks came from. It was only in the final that Ukraine’s Maria Yefremova matched Antim’s strength and agility—to a degree—Antim still won 4-0, without conceding a point.

Watching Antim fight last month at the trials for the Asian Games in New Delhi was a revelation. She is genetically gifted and superbly conditioned. Her strength and agility were so superior to her opponents—these were the senior elite of India of her weight category—that Antim looked like she was coasting in every fight. Always in control, always breathing easy.

Asian Games 2023

The next few weeks were personal hell for her—the Indian Olympic Association’s ad hoc committee that is running Indian wrestling right now had decided to give an exemption to Vinesh Phogat in Antim’s category, citing a rule in the federation’s constitution. Antim was having none of it. She challenged the decision in court. She lost the challenge. She campaigned on social media about the unfairness of it all. Phogat, India’s most decorated woman wrestler, clarified that she had never asked for an exemption and was ready for a trial against Antim. In the end, Phogat was ruled out after she suffered an injury in training that necessitated a knee surgery—one of the many in her long and storied career.

Now, Antim is headed for the Asian Games in China in September.

This is going to be a tricky, frankly—utterly crazy—time for Antim. Within days of her return from Amman to India, she will have to fight at the trials for the World Wrestling Championships team in Patiala. Her superiority means it will be a shock if she doesn’t win the trials. That will set her up for the World Championships in Belgrade, Serbia, where her weight class fights start on September 18 and continue till September 21 (if she reaches the final—this is also a qualification tournament for the 2024 Paris Olympics). The Asian Games start in Hangzhou on September 19, so Antim will have to fly straight from Serbia to China. All this while she will have to ensure that she is within the limit of her weight class, that her muscles are primed, and that she is well rested. It’s an almost impossible ask.

Two things work in her favour—she is freakishly strong, one of the strongest in the world in her weight class. And she has superb conditioning—an agile, supremely fast wrestler. She uses these two attributes for an all-out attacking strategy that is as thrilling as it is the route for success on the elite stage (defensive wrestlers rarely get consistent success). For example, one of her great attributes on display at the Worlds in Jordan was her ability for “level change”—another marker for success in most combat sports. What it means simply is how quickly and easily can a fighter go from targeting the upper part of an opponent’s body to the lower part? Antim is constantly mixing that up, going from arm holds to knee holds, feinting ankle holds and grabbing under the armpits instead, feinting knee holds and going for the ankle, all the while changing direction. It is the secret to her success.

There are two things that work against us—she is yet to be tactically and technically taught by a world-class coach (village-level wrestling coaches, with all due respect, are not up to date with modern methods), and she does not have enough experience. It showed at the Asian Championships in April where she breezed through her fights till she fell 10-0 to Japan’s Akari Fujinami in the final. Fujinami is just a few months older than Antim, but she has had the privilege of being coached by the best women’s wrestling coaches in the world, and has been winning at the senior elite level since 2021—she is that year’s world champion, and Asian champion in both 2022 and 2023. In fact, Fujinami is unbeaten since 2017.

Antim has the raw talent to match Fujinami, but accessing the same level of expertise and training facility is another matter.

Training and experience

It has been a hardscrabble road for Antim. She was born the fourth of four daughters to Krishna and Ram Niwas Panghal in a village 25km from the city of Hisar in Haryana. Her parents were small farmers, but when they saw Antim, as a 10-year-old, take on boys at the local all-boys akhada and beat them, they decided to sell everything they owned to buy land and build a small house on the outskirts of Hisar, were the area’s best-known women’s akhada was located.

Till she was signed by JSW Sports at 15, which funds training and other requirements for select junior athletes, the family struggled to finance the food and gear Antim needed for her sport.

“We named her Antim (final) because that’s a tradition in our parts when you don’t want any more daughters,” said her mother, Krishna. “Daughters are still seen as financial burdens on the family. They will stay at home and then you have to spend huge amounts for their marriage. This was our thought also. We had three daughters already, how will we do justice to a fourth (Antim has a younger brother)? But these things are all changing. All my daughters work. And Antim has completely changed our thought process. She has changed us.”