Thirty female wrestlers of Haryana, known for ‘Dangal’, striving hard to make their mark at the global level, have shaved off their hair to focus on their game.
Coach Sanjay Malik explained that in a match wrestlers get a 30-second break for recovery after a bout of three minutes. But due to long hair, women wrestlers used to spend all of the recovery time in dressing their hair impacting their performance in the match.
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He further stated that instead of looking beautiful, a player, irrespective of gender, should focus on playing beautifully.
Speaking to ANI Malik said, “During a national competition, I saw a girl wrestler who spent all the 30 seconds of her recovery time to manage her hair. Her hair acted as an obstacle to her recovery process. Consequently, she did not perform well in the next half of the match.”
“I thought that same could be faced by my players as well. A player should utilize their time on improving their performance. Instead of looking beautiful, the focus of player should be on playing in a beautiful manner..be it a girl or a boy,” he added.
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Wrestler Sweety Malik, who has played three international tournaments, said that apart from consuming a lot of time, long hair easily get damaged as they practice in the mud field.
“Girls with long hair don’t get time to rest. Another reason behind tonsuring our hair is that when we practice in mud they get damaged,” she said.
When asked if people comment about their look, the wrestler said that a lot of people ask many questions but we explain to them how it helps us to focus on our game better and make us disciplined.
(with ANI inputs)