Indian Wrestlers Train In 'Cauldron' At SAI Centre, Manage With 'Sub-Standard Food At Messy Mess' - Report

India's elite wrestlers and coaches are facing severe health and injury risks after being forced to train in a virtual 'cauldron' at the Sports Authority of India's Sonepat centre due to delayed renovation of the dedicated wrestling hall. Close to 70 male wrestlers, including country's top free-style and greco-roman exponents, are sweating buckets at the multipurpose hall, which is not fit for training when the mercury is touching an unforgiving 45 degree celsius these days in and around NCR.

One of the coaches, supervising the national camp, told PTI that sometimes the temperature inside the multipurpose hall during the training is torturous 39 degrees.

"Ideally, we should train when the temperature is around 23-24 but we are just exposing our wrestlers to injuries by asking them to train in such hot conditions. This is not ideal when Commonwealth Games are approaching," the coach said.

"It feels like we are taking sauna bath. That's kind of heat that is generated," said one of the wrestlers.

The wrestlers used to train at Sushil Kumar and Yogeshwar Dutt Hall but since it is still under renovation, the wrestlers have been training at the multipurpose hall, whose 12.5 metre height makes the AC ineffective.

Olympic bronze medallist Bajrang Punia, Aman Sehrawat the 57kg gold medal winner at the recent Ranking Series event, CWG-bound Mohit Grewal (125kg) all train at the centre.

Sometimes, Tokyo Games silver medallist Ravi Dahiya, who usually trains at Chhattrasal stadium, Jitender Kinha and Deepak Punia also train in Sonepat.

The national camp began early this year at SAI Centre and during the winters also, the interior temperature was not at all conducive for training.

"If outside it was 10 degree celsius, inside the