Indian female wrestlers breaking taboos and making history

The Indian female wrestlers breaking taboos and making history
By Sumnima Udas, CNN

Updated 1308 GMT (2108 HKT) July 28, 2016

(CNN)In India, a woman becoming a professional wrestler is rare enough.
But three Olympian wrestlers all from the same area of Haryana -- widely considered India's most patriarchal state -- and two of them related? That's unheard of.
"Where we're from, women are practically second-class citizens," says 21-year-old Vinesh Phogat.
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/tv/2016/07/28/india-female-wrestlers-udas-pkg.cnn.html 

Unrelenting criticism

Olympic wrestler Sakshi Malik.
Never before have three Indian female wrestlers qualified for the Olympics.
As Phogat, 23-year-old Sakshi Malik and 26-year-old Babita Kumar Phogat train, they ooze confidence.
The way they walk, talk, and of course, wrestle, is packed with power, determination and ambition. Characteristics that are unheard of among village women in Haryana.
"Our first battle was clothes -- to be able to wear what we want," says Vinesh.
"Even if we wore a t-shirt and sweatpants people would say to our parents: how can you let them wear that? Then we fought to stay out after 5 p.m. so we could train. Neighbors would say 'what kind of girl stays out after sunset'."
'When a daughter is born people are sad'
The criticism was unrelenting. And, in small towns and villages, what people say matters.
"The final battle was to be allowed to wrestle," says Vinesh. "People would say wrestling is not a woman's sport, if you break your limbs, who will marry you?"

Mahavir Singh Phogat trained his daughters and other girls in the village to be wrestlers.
Most women in rural Haryana are seen covered head-to-toe, balancing ubiquitous terracotta urns full of water on their heads, their education and ambition often cut short by child marriage.
That's of the ones that make it to childhood. According to the Navjyoti India Foundation, some 37,000 pregnancies that would result in girls are aborted every year, one of the highest rates in the world, because daughters are seen as a burden.
The WEF ranks India 143rd of 145 for its female-to-male sex ratio, and Haryana has one of the worst ratios in the country.
"Most people in Haryana are still very biased against women," Mahavir Singh Phogat explains.
"When a daughter is born people are actually sad here. Parents give sons better food and educate them, while daughters are just raised to do all the house work."
Mahavir is Vinesh's uncle and Babita's father. A former wrestler himself, Mahavir converted a traditional wrestling mudpit in his home village of Balali into a modern gym, and trained all four of his daughters and two nieces to become professional wrestlers.
Three of them have qualified for the Olympics.
'Our village changed'
"There was a lot of pushback," Mahavir says. "Everyone said I was bringing shame to our village by training my girls, but I thought, if a woman can be Prime Minister of a country, why can't she be a wrestler?"
2012 was a turning point. That's when his eldest daughter, Geeta, became the first Indian woman to qualify for the Olympics. Balali village was suddenly in the spotlight and locals realized the prestige daughters could bring to their families and entire village if given the opportunity.
"Suddenly everyone in the village wanted their daughter to become a wrestler," Mahavir recalls.
As you enter Balali, a sign now reads "Welcome to the village of the Phogat Sisters." It may still be a sleepy, dusty hamlet of some 2,000 people, but something truly radical is happening here.
Even after sunset, girls and women now venture out in their workout gear and sneakers, their hair cut short, and head to Mahavir's gym. Some of the girls are as young as 3 or 4-years-old. Everyone says they're inspired by the Phogats.
The story has left such a mark that one of India's most famous Bollywood stars Aamir Khan is even producing a movie about the Phogat sisters with himself as Mahavir Singh Phogat.
"Because of my girls, not only has our village changed, the entire state of Haryana is slowly changing," the real Mahavir says.
Fifteen years ago, he built the first and only wrestling gym for women.
Now he says in Haryana alone, there are more than 50.
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/28/sport/india-female-wrestlers-olympics/index.html

Oh, lordy ...my comfort factor radar is going 'Ape Shit Crazy' ...admittedly, I've cheered the young girls that have walked onto the boys baseball leagues/Jr. Varsity Football Teams and worked hard for their appointed spots on that team and I find this 'CRINGE WORTHY'   

I've watched these training video's and these young women are highly skilled these young ladies are ...but that said --- I squirm and find it hard to watch when it's male vs female and not female vs female.

Jules wrote:Indian  women already practise the ancient sport of Kabaddi, it's been around for decades and they have international matches with Pakistan, Sri Lanka & Iran.

No idea what the rules are but it involves wrestling and rolling around on the floor in stadiums and arenas. Watched by thousands of cheering men!

Yes, that's what my friend in Alaska was explaining to me; she thinks my concern for these young ladies competing in Co-ed wresting events is 'showing my age'

This blonde Norwegian woman has lived quite the nomadic life style!

Jules wrote:The rape culture in some parts of the world is a disgrace!

My friend said; 'hell, will freeze over before she ever wastes anymore money flying into Dubai ...she used to travel though that region a lot and she thinks it's gotten worse instead of better for women in Arab countries, even with all of the technology and clothing changes!

4EVER2 wrote:

Jules wrote:Indian  women already practise the ancient sport of Kabaddi, it's been around for decades and they have international matches with Pakistan, Sri Lanka & Iran.

No idea what the rules are but it involves wrestling and rolling around on the floor in stadiums and arenas. Watched by thousands of cheering men!

Yes, that's what my friend in Alaska was explaining to me; she thinks my concern for these young ladies competing in Co-ed wresting events is 'showing my age'
But the number of female rapes and just pure heinous attacks in many of these regions ...well, it's like walking around with a twirling red beacon flashing off over their young heads!
She travels to Sri Lanka every year or every other year and spends her summers into the fall shacked up with her favorite snorkel shop owner, named Niss! 
This blonde Norwegian woman has lived quite the nomadic life style!

veya_victaous wrote:

4EVER2 wrote:
Yes, that's what my friend in Alaska was explaining to me; she thinks my concern for these young ladies competing in Co-ed wresting events is 'showing my age'
But the number of female rapes and just pure heinous attacks in many of these regions ...well, it's like walking around with a twirling red beacon flashing off over their young heads!
She travels to Sri Lanka every year or every other year and spends her summers into the fall shacked up with her favorite snorkel shop owner, named Niss! 
This blonde Norwegian woman has lived quite the nomadic life style!

huh
the chick that can hip toss you across the room is going to be easier to rape?
I think they are probably least likely to be raped, they make a living beating up other professional fighters
Mahavir Singh Phogat should be proud

Geeze, VEYA ...do a wee, little reading about the sexual violence in those regions  

It's rarely a SINGLE man jumping one single woman; it's generally a roving band of lazy neardowells with nothing in life but a horrid case of STD's and his followers that rape/beat the poor hapless victim so horribly bad she can barely talk or walk!  That's how the 'MALE SPECIES' treat their female counter parts in those regions ...that's why the 'ARTICLE' clearly stated how the "father felt about his culture and how hard it's been to over come the social grid lock that his girls face" ...they may never be asked to get married!  Parents have such worries.

4EVER2 wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:

4EVER2 wrote:
Yes, that's what my friend in Alaska was explaining to me; she thinks my concern for these young ladies competing in Co-ed wresting events is 'showing my age'
But the number of female rapes and just pure heinous attacks in many of these regions ...well, it's like walking around with a twirling red beacon flashing off over their young heads!
She travels to Sri Lanka every year or every other year and spends her summers into the fall shacked up with her favorite snorkel shop owner, named Niss! 
This blonde Norwegian woman has lived quite the nomadic life style!

huh
the chick that can hip toss you across the room is going to be easier to rape?
I think they are probably least likely to be raped, they make a living beating up other professional fighters
Mahavir Singh Phogat should be proud

Geeze, VEYA ...do a wee, little reading about the sexual violence in those regions  
It's rarely a SINGLE man jumping one single woman; it's generally a roving band of lazy neardowells with nothing in life but a horrid case of STD's and his followers that rape/beat the poor hapless victim so horribly bad she can barely talk or walk!  That's how the 'MALE SPECIES' treat their female counter parts in those regions ...that's why the 'ARTICLE' clearly stated how the "father felt about his culture and how hard it's been to over come the social grid lock that his girls face" ...they may never be asked to get married!  Parents have such worries.

And You think NOT doing anything will magically change things? what a suprise

Thankfully their Father Want to CAHNGE things for the better
and not just keep the staus quo to have somthing to whine about
Now his Daughter and Nieces are champions, the Pride of the villiage and it has transformed the lives of most of the girls in that Villiage.

P.S. Rural India And Saudi Arabia have Very little in common and the issues of violence agaisnt women are NOT routed in the same sources. it is both racist and ignorant to say 'that region' to imply India and Saudi Arabia are in the same region

Too much of this   seems to cause you to create voices in your head; you'll not find anywhere in any of this topic where I've stated that "I'm against change" ...now you've just proven you can't sustain an adult discussion without behaving so juvenile and twisting the conversation around until it makes ZERO sense.  To what POINT VEYA, what's your game plan '?' to prove what an utter arse you are ...well I'm thinking that I am one of few that even bothers to exchange any decent verbal exchanges with you and that's about to cease!

Rio Olympics: Wrestler Sakshi Malik wins India’s first medal - bronze in 58kg freestyle

PTI | Aug 18, 2016, 02.58 AM IST
The 23-year-old from Rohtak became only the fourth woman athlete from India to win an Olympic medal as she earned the dramatic win after falling behind 0-5 in the do-or-die bout on day 12.  

Weightlifter Karnam Malleshwari (2000, Sydney), boxer MC Mary Kom (2012, London) and shuttler Saina Nehwal (2012, London) were the only other women athletes from India to have won a medal in Olympics.

Like in three of the four other bouts earlier in the day, Sakshi won the crucial bout after coming from behind. She, in fact, had lost 2-9 in the quarter-finals to Russia's Valeriia Koblova in the fifth bout of the day before getting a second chance in repechage when her conqueror reached the final.

Sakshi's victory brought cheers to the Indian contingent that had endured agonising 11 days without a medal. Tynybekova grabbed Sakshi's leg and quickly earned two points before adding one more for the Indian's passivity. She repeated her move and successfully bagged two more points to lead 5-0 at the break. Sakshi could open the scoring only in the second period and got two points after throwing her rival down and out of the mat. She then managed to earn two points again with a similar move to bring down the margin to 4-5.

Thereafter, it was no looking back for the Indian girl and she took the opponent down to level the scores 5-5. But she did not stop there and gained three more points by pinning down the Kyrgyzstan wrestler in the dying moments of the match.

She had earlier stormed into the bronze medal play-off round with a dominating performance in her repechage round, where she thrashed Purevdorjiin Orkhon of Mongolia 12-3. Both the wrestlers matched each other in the first period and the scores were 2-2 at the break. But Sakshi gave a more aggressive account of herself in the second period, pinning down her opponent from time to time, besides flipping her over for crucial points. 

(Reuters Photo)

Starting with a double-leg take down to earn two points, she added two more crucial points to her kitty to lead 6-3 with a minute left.
In the last one minute, she kept attacking and gained four more points. In fact, Sakshi earned as many as 10 points compared to just one by the Mongolian in the second period to seal off the issue in style.

As Sakshi had reached the quarterfinals, she needed to fight only one repechage round as compared to the other two opponents of the Russian girl, whom she had beaten in the earlier two rounds - pre-quarters and qualification.

Koblova had beaten Luisa Niemesch of Germany in the qualification round before defeating Mongolia's Orkhon in the pre-quarterfinals. Therefore, in the first repechage round, these two grapplers from Germany and Mongolia faced each other. And the winner of that bout (Mongolian girl) then took on Sakshi in repechage round 2 for a place in the bronze medal play-off. Sakshi had to get the better of the Mongolian grappler in the repechage round 2 and she did just that to advance to the bronze medal play off.

In the bronze play-off too Sakshi's winning move that got her two points initially was challenged by her Kyrgyztan rival and it was reviewed and she was awarded an extra point by the judges much to her rival's chagrin.

The other bronze was won by Marwa Amri of Tunisia. Earlier in the day, Sakshi went down in the quarterfinals losing 2-9 to Koblova. Having conceded one point in the first period of her quarterfinal fight because of passivity, Sakshi did well to earn two points in the second period after taking-down the Russian girl.

But Koblova, with enormous strength, hit back almost immediately to pocket four points and then gained another two to open up a 7-2 lead. The Russian then closed the door on Sakshi by bagging another two points to win the bout and make the semifinals. In the first two rounds, Sakshi came back from behind to register impressive wins.

Making a strong comeback from a 0-4 down, Sakshi defeated Sweden's Malin Johanna Mattsson 5-4 in the qualification round She was down 0-4 after the first period but quickly made amends in the second period. Sakshi managed to pull two points back before pushing her rival out of the mat to grab another point.

With just 10 seconds remaining, Sakshi desperately needed one more point to post a win and she held her nerves as she took down the Swedish girl in those dying moments to post a narrow victory.  

In the pre-quarters, she once again eked out a narrow 5-5 win over Mariana Cherdivara Esanu of Republic of Moldova In the opening period of the pre-quarterfinal bout, Sakshi got 30 seconds to earn points but she failed and that gave Cherdivara a point.

The girl from Moldova then put Sakshi down on the mat to gain another two points and lead 3-0 at the break.  In the second period, the Indian failed to take advantage of the 30 seconds she got and handed Cherdivara another point. Sakshi then came back strongly to post a double take down, which earned her four crucial points at one go and helped her surge ahead to a 5-3 lead.  Although Cherdivara, with her own take-down, gained two points to make the scores level at 5-5 with just 19 seconds left on the clock, the Indian was declared winner on bigger points gain.  
 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/rio-2016-olympics/india-in-olympics-2016/wrestling/Rio-Olympics-Wrestler-Sakshi-Malik-wins-Indias-first-medal-bronze-in-58kg-freestyle/articleshow/53747938.cms