India’s Sakshi Malik quits over election of new wrestling federation chief
Al Jazeera
Top wrestler quits the sport after Indian wrestling body replaces president accused of sexual abuse with his close ally.
A top Indian wrestler has announced she will quit the sport in protest after the country’s wrestling federation replaced a president accused of sexually abusing female athletes with his close ally.
Sakshi Malik, an acclaimed wrestler who won a bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics and led protests against Brij Bhushan Singh, the former chief of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI), announced her retirement on Thursday.
“We slept for 40 days on the roads and a lot of people from several parts of the country came to support us,” Malik, 31, told a news conference in New Delhi, referring to the protests earlier this year.
“If Brij Bhushan Singh’s business partner and a close aide is elected as the president of WFI, I quit wrestling”, she said before leaving the conference with tears in her eyes.
