Use of 'rigid tape' by doctors after head injury was strange, affected my focus: Bajrang Punia

Bajrang, gunning for his maiden world title, suffered a head injury in his opening bout against Cuba's Alejandro Enrique Vlades Tobier in the very first minute of the clash in Belgrade. The on-spot doctors rushed to the mat and applied 'rigid tape', which is actually used to stabilise knee and ankle. Mostly tennis players and basketball players use that tape.

"God knows why they did that? It caused irritation because my hairs were getting pulled as it had stuck on my head. They did not even put cotton on the wound and directly applied the tape. I had to cut my hair from a certain spot to get rid of that.

It took me almost 20 minutes to remove that," Bajrang told PTI. "Instead of devising a strategy against the American, me and my team were jostling to get that tape removed from my head. All I had about 20-25 minutes before I clashed with the American and all of that time was lost," the 28-year-old rued.

Dr. Anand Dubey, who is attached with Bajrang as his personal physio, said ideally the doctors should have used a cohesive tape. "The rigid tape can actually cause skull swelling because even a gentle touch would cause irritation and pull the hair.

You know how wrestlers keep putting their hands on their rival's head. So we decided to remove that and applied a cohesive tape," explained Dubey. "The cohesive tape is flexible.

Once impact is made when it comes in contact with a body part during an attacking move, it would come back to its original shape automatically, won't cause irritation or pull hair," he said. Bajrang lost the bout to the American by technical superiority to go out of the gold medal race. Later he won a bronze medal, coming through the repechage round.