India may use wrestling to undermine Aus domination of CWG

Australia fears its traditional domination of Commonwealth Games is under threat from India, who would use their wrestling might to surge up the medal tally in New Delhi later this year.

Wrestling Australia president John Saul said India has been a traditional wrestling powerhouse and with 14 gold medals up for grabs in the men and women's freestyle category alone, the hosts might eat into Australia's domination of the event scheduled from October 3-14.

u00a0"Wrestling is a key part of India's master plan to shoot up the medal count. There's nothing to stop Australia surging ahead at the start of the Games with a heap of medals in the (swimming) pool. "But they're going to peg us back through wrestling," Saul was quoted as saying by the Australian Associated Press (AAP).

Apart from freestyle, India would pose strong challenge in the seven Greco-Roman events as well, fears Saul.

"India have introduced (European) techniques through new coaches and they aim to capitalise on that," Saul said. With 21 wrestling gold on offer, India stood a great chance of restricting Australia's haul, he said.