New Delhi: As athletes of all other disciplines in India are presently gearing up to meet the challenges of the Asian Games to be held in Doha in December, for wrestlers, there is nothing but darkness at noon.

Caught between the infighting among the officials, there seems to be little hope for top wrestlers like Ramesh Gulia or Palwinder Chima to show their mettle at the international level.

Known as one of the most happening sports in India till a year ago, activities have nearly come to a standstill in wrestling since July last year when the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) decided to disband the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) and appointed an ad hoc committee to run the sport and conduct fresh elections in the faction ridden WFI.

The ad hoc committee, comprising Lalit Bhanot of athletics and Baljit Sethi of shooting, also could not hold the elections as it lead up to cases in the Delhi High Court.

So much so, India is unlikely to send a team in a series of international events in the next few months leading up to the Asian Games.

There was no Indian representation in the senior Asian Championships at Kazakhstan last month and there is little chance of a team going to the junior Asian meet (Abu Dhabi, June), Asian Cadet (Bangkok, August) or Senior World meet (China, September).

“The IOA ad hoc committee in charge of wrestling is doing nothing,” alleged Rajender Chaudhary, former assistant secretary of the WFI.

“Wrestlers are completely unprepared and won’t be able to perform even if they send the team.

“The present committee has not held even a single domestic meet since last July. Only we conducted a senior meet in Hissar recently.”

On an average, the Sports Authority of India holds at least 25 camps for wrestlers in a year, starting from the senior section to the cadet girls level.

Now, the last camp was conducted in September last year when the team was selected for the World Championships.

While the hearings of the court cases get postponed regularly, Bhanot says elections would be held soon and teams will go to international meets.

But the fact remains that leading wrestlers like Yogeshwar Dutt (55kg), Sushil Kumar (60kg), Anuj Kumar (84kg) and women grapplers like Geetika Jakhar (2002 Commonwealth Games gold medallist) and Nirmala are at the moment keeping their fingers crossed, hoping against hope that something good will come up in the next few months.