Narsingh Yadav becomes the new chairman of the WFI's Athletes Commission

Commonwealth Games gold medalist wrestler Narsingh Yadav is elected chairman of the seven-member athlete panel of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) on Wednesday. 

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There were eight candidates in the race to join this panel after which voting was held for seven posts. After the elections, the seven elected members elected Narsingh Yadav as the chairman of the panel.

Two-time Olympic medalist Sushil Kumar was unable to play in the qualification event of the 2016 Rio Olympics due to injury at that time and demanded a trial against Narsingh. Sushil had approached the Delhi High Court for this, but after his appeal was rejected, it was decided that Narsingh Yadav would represent India in the Rio Olympics.

However, just before the games, Narsingh failed the dope test twice and the Sports Tribunal had banned him for four years for this, while the National Doping Agency (NADA) had given a clean chit to Narsingh. The Sports Arbitration decision came before his opening bout, due to which Narsingh had to withdraw from the Olympics without playing. The ban on Narsingh ended in July 2020.

Apart from Narsingh Yadav, there are six other members included in the athlete panel of WFI. There is representation from different states in this panel as it includes people from many states. Apart from Narsingh, the panel included Sahil (Delhi), Smita AS (Kerala), Bharti Bhaghei (Uttar Pradesh), Khushboo S Pawar (Gujarat), Nikki (Haryana) and Sweta Dubey (Bengal).

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The Sports Ministry suspended the WFI in December, but the sport's global body UWW reinstated the membership of the Wrestling Federation of India. After this, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) took a big decision and decided to dissolve the ad-hoc committee handling the daily work of WFI. Sanjay Singh had become the President of WFI, but the Sports Ministry had suspended the Executive Committee of WFI citing violation of the rules of the Sports Code.