'Confidence is most important': Sakshi Malik is queen of the mat again

They'd written her off after her Rio bronze, but with a gold in the Commonwealth Games, Malik has shown the fire burns bright, writes Vaibhav Raghunandan

Perhaps the mark of an elite athlete doesn’t come from the number of victories or medals they gather, but from what they do with the losses they rack up. Kipling’s words about triumph and disaster, "two imposters” that should be treated "just the same", ring true. And while Sakshi Malik hasn’t read Kipling, she gets his advice better than most. She trusted herself when those around doubted her, and, most importantly, made allowance for their doubting, too.

“I understand, you guys have a job to do,” she says, speaking from her home in Rohtak, Haryana. It's late evening, and she’s made allowance for a cup of tea for this interview, despite having been at felicitation ceremonies all day. The room is sparse, ochre curtains behind her, and a TV mounted on the wall. Malik is all smiles — as, in fairness, she always is — basking in the resurrection of a career that had been written off. It is, as she very generously says, “your job is to give us a reality check. You support us, but also have to criticise us… it's the way of the world.”

In the days that followed that last gasp, that mind-bending Olympic bronze in the 2016 Rio Olympics, the world was for Malik’s taking. She’s the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal in wrestling, and one of only two to come back from those Games with a medal at all. It was an unlikely medal, especially because of the lack of attention she received in the lead-up to the event itself.  

The next few years were a descent into a slow burn hell. Dogged by injuries, weight-cut issues, debilitating losses and a lack of confidence, over the next five years, Malik went from an unheralded Olympic medallist to the scalp everyone wanted in their collection — wrestlers, writers, analysts alike. The real nail in the coffin came when she lost in the first round of the 2019 World Championships in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan. Barely three years after the heady Olympic win, she was dropped from the government’s Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS), discarded in a manner ruthless and necessary, but dispiriting all the same. She didn’t qualify for the Tokyo Games at all. 

“Confidence is the most important thing in wrestling. You can feel it in your opponent’s grip sometimes,” she says. “When you’re losing, despite putting all your effort in training, doing well even, your confidence just drips away. I started questioning things. I felt fit, felt like I was training hard and well, performing well in the gym, but the results were showing otherwise.”

“And then of course, you guys always sensationalise every loss. Sakshi ek Olympic medallists hote hue kiss se haar gayi (Sakshi lost to someone despite being an Olympic medallist),” she laughs. “I didn’t soak that pressure up too much. I started focusing on the fact that despite everything, I was still passionate about wrestling, and was still competing and wanted to compete.”

So, Malik put her head down and kept chipping away, working on the small tactical and technical errors she made during bouts. Slowly, silently, away from the spotlight, just like she had before the bronze hullabaloo, she put the hard yards in at training.

When she won bronze, she was a fresh-faced youngster. Her so-called peak years had floundered away, and now at 29, she was the experienced fox in the hunt, working with her limitations but ensuring they didn’t damage her. 

And yet, in many ways, a lot of things she does are the same. She had made it to Rio by the skin of her teeth, qualifying for it only after Geeta Phogat was suspended by the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) for the final qualifying event in the cycle. Ironically, Malik's youth career was easier really because of the inroads made by Phogat to advance women’s wrestling in the state. In her absence, Malik slotted in and won the qualification for Rio.  

At the Games, a loss in the quarters meant her only chance for a medal would come through the repêchage, and once there she never let up. Right until she almost did. In the bronze medal match, Malik left it late. Heading into the final minute of the bout, she and her opponent, Aisuluu Tynybekova, were level on points but chances were Tynybekova would likely earn the victory because of a higher point takedown. With mere seconds left though, Malik issued her “favourite” single leg takedown to earn an outright victory. 

It was almost identical at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham – Malik leaving it late against Canada’s Ana Godinez Gonzalez to win her first gold at the Games, ever. It is easy to dismiss a wrestling medal from the Commonwealth Games, right till you hear the joy in her voice. “It was a big thing for me,” she says, her eyes lighting up in the way that has been long missed. “I have a silver and a bronze, but I needed a gold to finish my collection. A gold is a gold, after all. You have to beat someone strong to get it.”

In the days following Rio, there was this harsh perception that the bronze had been a fluke, and that Malik wasn’t actually technically or tactically astute enough to jostle with the best in the world. Her tendency to leave it late and give up points to silly errors counted against her. As the confidence ebbed away, her mental strength was questioned. She got married in 2017, and went up in weight category after. Almost immediately, the chorus calls of “indisciplined lifestyle” rang through. 

While there is no merit in debating whether these absurd standards were ever applied to male wrestlers – after all, Bajrang Punia, a long-touted prospect, fan favourite and Indian wrestling icon, has the same number of medals from the same number of Olympics as her – Malik took them in her stride. If anything, she started delving inwards to find solutions to the problems in her career.

“I started working with a psychologist before 2016. But yes, over the past few years the way we have worked together has changed,” she says. The psychologist stressed on the need for her to reaffirm to herself her strengths, and Malik started keeping a journal to do so. “It was a great way to push out the negativity,” she says. “I’d sit and write my day, list out things I did well, and things I needed to work on. And then, of course, I put in some reflections, things I’d enjoy reading every once in a while.” 

At 29, Malik knows these are the last few years of her career. Wrestlers start young and retire young. Two Olympic cycles are often the maximum they can take out of their bodies and their minds. It helps that Paris is only two years away. But Malik knows that getting there is going to be just as tough as before.

“I think there’s another way to think about it,” she says. “Rather than looking at the fact that I’m losing selection trials as a bad thing, think about the depth we now have in the women’s field in India. Earlier, wrestlers would be happy just going to the Olympics. Now, the girls want to win medals. It is their ambition. The mindset has changed.” 

Also think about this: despite the talent, the depth and whatnot, Malik is the only woman wrestler with a medal from the Olympics. And she’s on a late surge, the kind that always leads her to glory.