22-year-old Sujeet Kalkal is the toast of the Indian wrestling ecosystem right now.
In July, Sujeet won India’s first gold medal of the year at the UWW (United World Wrestling) Ranking Series in Budapest, defeating Olympic bronze medallist Islam Dudaev of Albania, two-time Olympian Vazgen Tevanyan of Armenia, and four-time European medallist Ali Rahimzade of Azerbaijan in the men’s 65kg division.
In a strong field, Sujeet scored 33 points while conceding just two across four matches — a result that marks him as a potential medal contender at the World Championships in September.
Sujeet has experienced his share of heartbreak. Last year’s World Wrestling Olympic Qualification Tournament brought him one of the lowest moments of his career. Having won the selection trials in India, Sujeet had hoped to qualify for the Paris Games at the Asian Olympic Qualifiers in Jordan. But in a turn of misfortune, his connecting flight to Amman was delayed due to a record-breaking flood in Dubai.
At the World Qualifiers — a much tougher field — Sujeet made it to the semifinals, needing just one more win to book his Olympic ticket. But he fell short. He lost 6-1 to Mongolia’s Tulga Tomor-Ochiryn, and then came agonisingly close against World Champion Zain Retherford of the USA, losing 2-2 on criteria.
Sujeet might have been expected to take to wrestling as a matter of tradition, but he’s a relatively late bloomer in the sport.
| Photo Credit:
MOORTHY RV/ The Hindu
Sujeet might have been expected to take to wrestling as a matter of tradition, but he’s a relatively late bloomer in the sport.
| Photo Credit:
MOORTHY RV/ The Hindu
2025 also brought its challenges. While he had hoped to push his case further at the Asian Championships at the start of the year, an unlucky injury to his right ankle in his second bout forced him to forfeit the remainder of the tournament. The injury, diagnosed as a ligament tear, took nearly two months to heal.
Sujeet might have been expected to take to wrestling as a matter of tradition, but he’s a relatively late bloomer in the sport, only seriously pursuing it about five years ago. He traces his roots to Imlota, a village in Haryana’s Bhiwani district with a strong wrestling culture. His father, Dayanand, is a former national wrestling champion and even competed at the 2005 World Championships in the Greco-Roman category.
Sujeet, however, wasn’t pushed into the sport. Although he started going to the village akhara with his father from the age of six, he, unlike many Indian wrestlers, was expected to give equal importance to his studies. Unable to focus solely on wrestling, Sujeet’s career features no major success at the cadet (Under-17) or junior (U-19) levels.
Sujeet has made SAI Sonepat his home and hopes to keep evolving as a wrestler. His coach, Kuldeep Singh, while noting how far his ward has come in strength and spirit, believes that this is just the beginning.
