There's a handwritten inscription above Aman Sehrawat's bed in the hostel at Delhi's Chhatrasal Stadium: "If it were easy, everyone would do it," it says.
That's true for any aspiring Olympic medalist; the road to greatness is paved with years of hard work and sacrifice. But in Aman's case, there was an additional price to pay: Along that road, he had to beat and dethrone his idol and mentor, Ravi Dahiya - because they were in the same weight category, only one of them could make it to Paris.
Chhatrasal, the nursery of Indian wrestling, has produced each of India's last four male Olympic medallists: Sushil Kumar, Yogeshwar Dutt, Bajrang Punia and Ravi Dahiya. Aman believed early on, and so did almost everyone who'd followed his stunning rise to the top, that he'd be the fifth.
Coming here as a 10-year-old in 2014, Aman learnt the basics of wrestling on the same sand pits and foam mats as these greats. Training around them rubbed off on him - he was inspired by Sushil's work ethic, for example - but the wrestler Aman was able to relate to the most was Ravi. He, too, had come to Chhatrasal as a child and learnt the ropes here before capping it off with that silver medal in Tokyo.
Growing up, Aman aspired to be like Ravi. He would intently watch him train, his keen eyes would follow Ravi around the wrestling mat, eager to see what he was doing that made him so successful. If he saw something he liked, he would try to add that to his routine. He tried to train and eat like Ravi, he wanted to be Ravi. They both have a similar build, similar wrestling style and similar reticent personalities. It helped that the two were in the same weight category too: the men's 57kg freestyle.
It was Ravi's medal win in Tokyo that convinced Aman he could emulate his idol. "I knew then that I would go to the 2024 Olympics in the same weight category and to do that, I had to train with all I had. I did not want to leave anything to be desired in my preparation. I was confident that I would make it to Paris," he says firmly.
But there was a catch: to go to the Olympics, he had to defeat his idol.
"If it were easy, everyone would do it"
That project began badly: Aman lost 0-10 to Ravi during the 2022 Commonwealth Games trials, which left him shattered, so much that he would watch the video of that loss on loop, every day, trying to figure out how he had lost. They trained at the same stadium, the same training hall and had the same coach, but there was a clear gulf in class.
To bridge that gap, Aman had a simple fix: he needed to see Ravi as a competitor and not an Olympic medallist, much less his hero. With that mental clarity, he went to the trials for the 2024 Asian Olympic Qualifiers and beat Ravi - undercooked and returning from injury - by a single point.
On the mat, there was a visible shift in Aman's demeanor against Ravi that day: he stood straight and sized up his opponent before the bout and was the aggressor from the start.
Though Ravi got four points to Aman's two early on, the younger wrestler had made his intentions clear. He kept attacking, moving his senior counterpart around the mat and tiring him out before swooping at his legs whenever he saw an opening. Aman used his long limbs to stave off any advances from Ravi and sped away to a 12-4 lead. The major difference this time around was that Aman fought without holding himself back. He wasn't being too defensive or respectful like he was in 2022, and it paid off. Aman clinched the win despite Ravi's late comeback and earned the right to fight for an Olympic quota.
The passing of the baton was complete and Aman now occupied the 57kg spot. He would go on to win that all-important Olympic quota and become the only male wrestler to qualify for the Paris Olympics. The last time India had only one male wrestler at an Olympics was back in the 2000 Sydney Games - before Aman was even born.
Today, Aman's room in the stadium reflects his ambitions: To the right of his pillow is the "Qualified Athlete" cardboard he was given after winning the Olympic quota at the World Qualifiers in May. Next to the "easy" inscription is the word GOLD written in big capital letters. The square room has its yellow walls plastered with a collection of images of a gold medal.
Aman is confident of climbing the podium in Paris, but is not obsessing over the colour of the medal. "Bhagwan will decide what medal", he says. "Medal-mudal toh baad ki soch hai, abhi mujhe bas mehnat karni hai (I'm not thinking about a medal, right now I just have to work hard)," he says matter-of-factly.
*****
It's a sultry Tuesday evening in Delhi, the kind of weather where you merely need to stand outdoors to sweat buckets. At Chhatrasal, the wrestlers go through their warm-up, which ends with a set of 600 uthak baithaks, the desi version of a burpee.
It's a short walk from here to the air-conditioned wrestling hall and as we walk, Lalit Kumar, formerly Ravi Dahiya's coach and now with Aman, consoles a tearful nine-year-old, the youngest of the 150 trainees here. He tells Lalit he's missing his family back home. "Aman was pretty much the same age when he came here," says Lalit. "A year after he joined Chhatrasal, he was orphaned and this became his home."
Soon Aman - excused from the warm-ups because he's travelling to Dagestan the next day - makes his way down the ramp to enter the underground training hall for the sparring session.
The walls bear photos of Sushil and Ravi; there's none yet of Aman. "We thought of putting up his photo when he received the Arjuna Award, but later felt a picture of Aman on the Olympic podium would look better," says Lalit (himself a Dronacharya award winner) with a smile.
The hour-long sparring session, for all its obvious limitations, reveals Aman's skills and strengths. His speed, for one, how quickly he rebounds after a move. While his sparring partner Rohit is gasping for air, Aman is back at it, hands raised and shoulders dropped, ready to grapple. He's a very in-your-face wrestler and his fast feet are what make him a tough opponent, notes Lalit. "Every athlete has a few god-gifted qualities. For Aman, it's speed. His attack and speed set him apart."
That also explains Aman's favoured all-out attacking approach. His endurance and pace allow him to attack for the entire 360 seconds of a wrestling bout. He's been a staunch believer of attack over defence. "It just came to me, honestly. It's just how I have always wrestled," says Aman. That principle, though, has also proven costly in the major bouts he's lost: his opponents have scored points early in the bout. And since he prioritized attack, his defence gave away.
"That's what happened at the 2022 Asian Games semifinal against the Japanese," recalls Aman. "He scored quick points in the start and my small errors made the difference. I did not pay attention to my defence and he scored points off my feet and I lost a close bout. I felt if I had one more attack, I would have won the bout and maybe gone on to have won the gold."
At the Asian Qualifiers in Bishkek in April, Aman tried a more cautious approach but was rolled over by his opponent in the first period itself. His defence, or a lack of it, came to haunt him once again.
That's when he got a call from a familiar voice - it was Sushil Kumar, calling from Tihar Jail in Delhi, (where he's accused of a murder of a junior wrestler). "Sushil pehelwan said mine was not a defence game and that I should focus on attacking from the start and not defend for even one second. He told me to just go all-out attack. I prefer that technique too. I tried to change things around thinking I needed to defend too at this [senior] level, but that did not work for me and the attacking style worked out in the end," he says.
*****
That advice came from sheer experience, which is possibly Aman's only drawback. While youth can be an advantage in a full-contact sport, tactical nous and the ability to manage bouts come from experience. Aman's journey reflects this limitation.
The new kid on the block on the senior circuit, Aman bossed the age-group events, winning two bronzes at the World Cadet level before a gold at the Asian Cadets in 2019. Then came 2022, the year when as a teenager, he made the transition to the big league. He bagged bronze in the Asian U20 Championship and followed it with a gold in the Asian U23 Championships. But his true moment of glory was when he clinched gold at the 2022 World U23 Championships. It was something even his seniors, Bajrang and Ravi had not managed to do.
It pushed him into the next stage of his career and he won gold at the 2023 Asian Championships and a bronze at the Asian Games. But, while he's had success at the Asian level, he has yet to really make a mark on the world stage, where he's had only two years as a senior.
Aman admits it's a lot harder to shine among the seniors. "One small mistake and full kushti kharaab ho jaati hai (the entire wrestling bout is lost). The margin for error is very small. In the juniors, you can get away with a few things. But with the seniors, you make the slightest error and it could prove costly. You get picked on for your smallest errors," he says, once again referring to how he lost that Asian Games semifinal.
Lalit adds that another difference in the senior circuit is critical thinking. "Senior players don't use only strength, but also use their head to win bouts because they have a lot more experience. Aman has around a year and a half of senior-level experience and his opponents may have a lot more. The experience is important because it helps you figure out how to win bouts and how to get past tough opponents."
That might be a slight weakness on Aman's side, but it's not something he can change. What he can do, though, is stay disciplined and work on the controllables. "He is completely dedicated to the sport. From day one, he does over and above what the coaches tell him to do. That's his strength," says Lalit.
*****
One could say that the Paris Olympics might be coming too soon for Aman, who is just 20. But his track record says otherwise -- since making his senior debut in February 2022, he has an impressive 79.4% win ratio. That's 31 wins in 39 bouts...meaning he has lost just eight bouts in over two years.
Interestingly though, Aman has had more experience at the senior level than Ravi did before his Olympic debut. Ravi competed in 26 bouts across eight competitions since getting his first taste of senior wrestling at the 2019 Dan Kolov - Nikola Petrov competition.
Take a look at Aman's stats for 2024 itself - he's won 11 of the 13 bouts and along the way, he grabbed an Olympic quota, gold at the Zagreb Open and a silver at the Hungary Ranking Series. Most of his wins have come against wrestlers of proper pedigree, some of whom, are in fact, Ravi's compatriots.
Aman's campaign at the World Qualifiers tells the story: it was his last chance to book a berth at Paris and he needed to beat three top-quality opponents to get there. He first beat Bulgaria's Georgi Vangelov, an Olympian and three-time European Championships bronze medallist, then got past 2017 Worlds bronze medallist Andriy Yatsenko before wrapping up the quota with a strong win over Asian Games silver medallist Chong Song Han of PRK.
The bout against Han was a tricky one as the Korean is also a snappy wrestler and Aman needed to be doubly careful with his leg defence. Especially after the manner of his loss against Gulomjon Abdullaev at the Asian Olympic Qualifiers, where the Uzbek inflicted a takedown within the first 30 seconds and then pinned Aman inside the first period.
Against Han, Aman played to his strength: he kept Han moving around the mat, but stayed far enough to not let him attack his legs. True to his nature, Aman attacked till the end and when he found the opening mid-way into the second period, he rolled his opponent thrice to win by superiority.
Though he may be the youngest among his competitors, he's taken on the more-celebrated names in his field and come out on top. At the times when he's lost, he's had the maturity to learn from his past failures and translate that into cleaner performances against tougher opponents. That's how he was able to put behind the loss to Abdullaev and beat Han for the Olympic quota.
Some of his notable wins have also come against opponents who he could face in Paris: he'd beaten China's Zou Wanhao, a 2018 U23 World bronze winner, to win the Zagreb Open in January and in 2022, he outwitted Bekzat Almaz Uulu in U23 Worlds semifinals to go on to win gold [Uulu later won the U23 worlds bronze and Asian U23 gold in 2023].
*****
Aman's muscular shoulders now hold the weight of expectations from a medal-hungry nation. Given the fact that India has won a wrestling medal in every Olympic campaign since 2008, he is expected to climb the podium in Paris. He has an idea of that, especially from the kind of pressure was under before winning the Olympic quota.
"I was checking the records and India has had a wrestler qualifying at this weight since 2004. So if I had not qualified, everyone would have blamed me," he would tell UWW after sealing the quota. Any other 20-year-old, stepping into the shoes of an Olympic medallist and pressured with having to rescue Indian men's freestyle wrestling from potential embarrassment, might have crumbled.
Adding to it was the fact that Aman was not only expected to medal in his category, but Chhatrasal's hopes were also pinned on him to keep the stadium's rich legacy at the Olympics alive.
What all the pressure and hopes did was bring out the best in Aman.
He may be this shy, soft-spoken wrestler but the intent for that Olympic medal shows. It shows when you walk into his room, when you watch him wrestle and in the way he carries himself. Though he's a man of few words, he has become more assertive, publicly saying that he sees himself among the top-3 wrestlers in the world. In May, he had openly questioned India's wrestling administration, asking them whether he was to train for the Olympics or cut weight for a potential trial.
"So many times I have cut my weight. How many times do I have to do it? It causes a lot of weakness. I don't understand, do I think of now winning trials again or start preparing for the Olympics? I think the work I need to put in for good preparation will be affected if I am asked to go through the trials again," he would tell PTI before giving his two cents: "In my opinion, trials should not be held."
It was surprising coming from Aman, given his shy-boy reputation, but it showed that he meant business. He did not want to sit around and wait until the administration took a call, he sought answers to ensure he could work towards his goal. He was no longer the kid who walked into Chhatrasal 10 years ago, he was now four bouts away from an Olympic medal and wanted nothing to come in his way.
It also alludes to why he tends to push himself over and above what the coaches recommend. He refuses to be ordinary. "Everyone works hard, but to get where I want to be, I need to be better than them. 100% is not enough, I need to do more than that."
That explains the writing on his wall: "If it were easy, everyone would do it."
*****
Aman now heads to Dagestan, arguably the world's wrestling capital, to fine-tune his preparations before going to Paris. Dagestan has been a preferred destination for most of India's top wrestlers because the world's best train there. It's also because wrestling runs deep in their culture, much like Haryana, and they have better systems in place that particularly help athletes who are bound to major competitions.
Two-time Olympic champion and five-time world champion Abdulrashid Sadulaev, UFC champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and current UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev all hail from Dagestan. At the 2016 Olympics, five medallists were from Dagestan. Currently, three of the 16 wrestlers in the 57kg have Russian roots [but represent other nations] and many more are likely to train in Dagestan before the Games.
It's where the best become better.
"He is completely dedicated to the sport. From day one, he does over and above what the coaches tell him to do. That's his strength." Lalit Kumar
Lalit says training with stronger sparring partners, some of whom will be his competitors at Paris, and being around top wrestlers from other countries will greatly help Aman. The change in time [Dagestan is one hour ahead of Paris] would also help him acclimatize better when he reaches the Olympic Village.
Dagestan is, in fact, the only other venue Aman has ever trained in other than Chhatrasal. All the men he grew up watching had also trained here - the Indian men's Olympic team had camped in Dagestan before the Tokyo Olympics. So it was only fitting for him to follow their footsteps and do all he could to emulate them, or perhaps even one-up them.
Dagestan is far away from home and Aman admits he does not like to stay away from Chhatrasal for too long. He tends to miss the desi food and the familiar surroundings. "I sometimes feel sad when I travel. If it's a long tour then I feel like I was better off here," he says, but knows the importance of his three-week camp in the Russian wrestling hub. It's crunch time and he will grab every opportunity that comes his way to propel himself onto that podium in Paris. The photo of which, will surely, be put up at the underground training hall in Chhatrasal.