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Amid the chaos and noise of the opening ceremony practice, Narsingh Pancham Yadav's calm composure was in complete contrast to his teammate's Rahul Mann's desperation to make the cut in his weight category. While Yadav was at ease ahead of the medicals and the ensuing weigh-ins, Mann was sweating it out in the training area. Yadav will take on Kyrgyzstan's Ilgiz Dzhakypbekov in his first bout of the Senior Asian Wrestling Championship, starting at the Indira Gandhi Stadium from Wednesday. Unnerved of being one of the three wrestlers, who will open up the hosts' campaign at the meet, Yadav showed eagerness to start off positively.
"Koi pressure nahi hai (there's no pressure)," said the 21-year-old from Mumbai.
Yadav, who took up the sport when he was 11, won his first international medal -- a bronze -- in 2005 at the Asian cadet meet. Since then, there has been no looking back. One reason of his calm can be his recent win against Beijing bronze-medalist Belarus's Murad, in the Alexander Medvedev tournament last month.
He is also the reigning national champion in the 74kg category. Talking about his preparedness for the meet the youngster said: "We've all worked hard during the camp."
In contrast, Mann after working out was seen lying on the training area mat, both in exhaustion and relief of having made the cut. Mann takes on Nadyrbek Uulu of Kyrgyzstan in his opening bout on Wednesday. With most of the squad choosing to stay indoors, with their bouts scheduled from Thursday, Mann with backing from Indian coaching staff assistant coaches Yasveer and GS Sangha went through a rigorous 2 hours of running and training to make his weight category. Mausam Khatri, who plays China's Han Wenlong, is the third Indian wrestler, who will be on show on Wednesday.
Chaos and confusionWith many of the liaison officers sourced from city colleges - not conversant in any of the foreign languages, athletes and their trainers had a hard time in getting their point across. As the wrestlers began filling up the training area, demands for sauna bath, ahead of the weigh-ins had liason officers in a spot of bother.
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