Palwinder Singh Cheema (Punjab, 120 kg), Yogesh Dutt (Haryana, 55 kg), Ramesh Kumar (Haryana, 66 kg) and Ajay Chauhan (Uttar Pradesh, 84 kg) have qualified for the Athens Olympics, a press release by the Wrestling Federation of India president M S Malik, said in Chandigarh on Sunday.
Cheema and Yogesh have also stormed into the final rounds in their respective category and they are in line for gold medals.
Malik said that Sujit Mann and Sushil Kumar had already qualified for the 2004 Olympics, bringing the total number of qualifiers to six in freestyle category. Malik, who is also Director General of Police, Haryana, is confident that more wrestlers in the Greeco-Roman would qualify for Athens.
Even a few women wrestlers would also qualify for the August Olympics, he said.
Congratulting the Indian wrestlers who are participating in the Pre-Olympic Tournament in Sofia (the capital of Bulgaria), Haryana Olympic Association president Abhey Singh Chautala announced that the Indian wrestlers who would qualify for the Athens Olympics would be provided Indian diet during training abroad and competitions in Athens.
The HOA and Haryana Government would bear all expenses of the wrestlers who compete in the 2004 Olympics, he said.