From crisis of confidence to CWG gold, Sakshi Malik turns a corner

Commonwealth Games, Olympic medallist Sakshi Malik could not have overcome the 'crisis of confidence' she was experiencing over the last two years. She also strongly thought about retirement. The demons in her mind were understandable as she was losing to her juniors in the domestic circuit and had not done much of notice since getting that historic bronze in Rio Olympics six years ago.

The 29-year-old somehow managed to beat Sonam Malik to top the 62kg trials after losing to the youngster a number of times and made the India squad for the Birmingham Games. That was the moment when Sakshi started to get her confidence back and also paved the way for a gold medal winning performance here on Friday. Making hand written notes of her thoughts after sessions with psychologists also helped immensely. "My confidence was down for a while. My coaches told me I was the fittest among seniors and juniors and had all the power. "I used to wonder what was wrong with me. Whether it was bad luck. I won the trials (in May) and from then I started to feel confident about my game," said Sakshi after bouncing back from 0-4 to pin Canada's And Godinez Gonzalez. She called the gold medal finish her biggest result since the Rio Games. "I had not won gold in CWG (she had won silver and bronze earlier). I wanted to fight till the end to get that gold. Even when I was 0-4 down, it did not bother me. I had won bouts with seconds left in the Olympics, here I had three minutes left," she said referring to her double leg move that settled the contest. "I have been wrestling for 18 years, I can do this in my sleep as well. I am so used to it that it comes subconsciously to me." "It's a kind of comeback for me since I had not done anything in last