Just two years back, Abhimanyou Mandwal was staring at a pre-mature end to his wrestling career. He picked up a devastating ankle injury ahead of the 2024 U23 World Championships and then slipped into depression.
Yet earlier this month, Abhimanyou stood at the top of the Asian Wrestling Championships podium, with a gold medal around his neck and a wide grin on his face. He is the first Indian to be crowned the continental champion in men’s 70kg freestyle.
“It was a very painful injury,” Abhimanyou reflected in a conversation with Read.
“It wasted year-and-a-half of my career and pushed me into depression,” he added.
Having had a heartbreaking 5th place finish at the senior world championships the year before, Abhimanyou was aiming to redeem himself at the U23 world championships before the injury.
He pushed himself to the limit, only to find himself locked inside his home for the next two seasons. The determination to dominate at the U23 world championships meant that he pushed himself more than he should have, training even while he was suffering from typhoid.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform,” stated Abhimanyou, when asked what caused the career threatening injury.
Though he recovered after a rigorous recovery, it proved tough to fight back mentally with negative thoughts clouding his mind.
“I always thought what will happen if I get injured again,” he shared. “Will it be all over?”
“But I learnt that as an athlete you need to be mentally strong. Else, you won’t be able to return to the sport fully,” he added.
The road to continental glory
At the Asian Championships this month, Abhimanyou took down some of the best wrestlers in the world to be crowned the champion.
In the semi-finals he got the better off the reigning champion and home favourite Ernazar Akmataliev in front of a partisan crowd in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
It was a controversial bout as he edged out Ernazar 6-3. The Kyrgyzstan wrestler thought he had the lead heading into the dying moments of the bout after an earlier manoeuvre. However, he was found to be out of bounds during that move and the scoreline was corrected timely.
Ernazar, however, remained under the impression he was in the lead and barely attacked in the final moments. The eventual result shocked him as well as the crowd.
“When you enter the ground, we don’t think about the crowd, and our only focus is on the opponent,” said Abhimanyou.
“Even if Ernazar knew that (he wasn’t in the lead), I would have won as I was ready for his attack and had my endurance. Whenever I face him next, I will prove that,” the Indian added.
In the final, Abhimanyou defeated Asian Games champion Tömör-Ochiryn Tulga, registering a come-from-behind win.
“I was always confident,” said Abhimanyou. “I knew I had the advantage since he came up to 70kg from 65kg and I went down from 74kg.
“When I went into the bout, I always thought that I was the superior wrestler,” he added.
Early days
Abhimanyou was pushed into wrestling by his parents. He wasn’t keen on the sport, but continued because his parents wanted him to.
It was only years later in 2017-18 that he slowly fell in love with wrestling.
“Once my interest rose, wrestling became everything – my passion, my obsession,” he said.
Abhimanyou’s father was also a wrestler but had to leave the sport behind once he took up a job in the Assam Rifles regiment of the Indian army.
“My father had to leave the sport due to his job, but now I want to finish what he could not, especially as we have even better facilities in comparison to his time,” he said.
A decade after taking the sport seriously, Abhimanyou is the Asian champion and he is coming for more.
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