Olympic-bound Indian wrestler Deepak Punia on Tuesday pulled out of the Poland Open here to avoid aggravating his left-hand injury that he carried into the last Ranking Series event before the Tokyo Games.
Deepak Punia was to take mat for the 86kg event but forfeited his quarterfinal against American Zahid Valencia. It has been learnt that the 2019 World championships bronze-winner had suffered the injury two-three days before leaving for Warsaw during practice.
“He did not want to aggravate the injury and had informed the Federation that he will take a call on competing after reaching. After assessing his hand this morning, he decided not to take the mat,” a source in the Indian camp said.
The Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) confirmed the injury sustained by Deepak.”Yes, we have given him a choice. We do not want to put pressure on wrestlers, the Olympics are near, so no point in taking risks,” said WFI Assistant Secretary Vinod Tomar.
Punia will remain with the team till July 5 for the training camp that has been organised by the Polish Federation.
With Punia pulling out, only three Indians are now left in the competition.
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