At the Raipur Sports Academy in Sonepat, coach Kuldeep Singh watches from a distance as Francis Sangma of Meghalaya tries to take down Haryana’s Rohit. He would then go on and explain to Francis the right way to execute the manoeuvre.At the Chhotu Ram Stadium in Rohtak, coach Mandeep is watching Komal of Maharashtra very closely. He then shows her the right technique to hold the opponent’s leg while attacking.Francis and Komal are two of the many aspiring wrestlers who have moved more than 1000 kms from home to pursue wrestling excellence in Haryana.The reason behind the likes of Francis, Komal and others like Vaishnavi Patil, who represented India at the World Championships last year, moving to Haryana is the unmatched legacy and quality the state boasts of in the sport. Coach Kuldeep Yadav in picture. (Express Photo by Gajendra Yadav)Another proof is the Indian wrestling squad at the 2026 Asian Games. All the 15 wrestlers who will take the mat for India in Aichi-Nagoya hail from Haryana.Six women, five men in freestyle and four in Greco-Roman hail from seven districts of Haryana with Jhajjar contributing five, including Olympics bronze medallist Aman Sehrawat and Tokyo Olympian Deepak Punia.Click here to read our Asian Games full coverage“One of the biggest reasons for Haryana’s dominance is that wrestlers and coaches here realised that the sport provides a pathway to represent India at the international level, providing money, glory and pride in the process,” Kuldeep told The Indian Express.Story continues below this adRooted in traditionWrestling seems part of Haryana’s DNA. Before the state started producing Olympic and Asian Games medallists, dangals and mitti kushti were part of the culture.“Kushti and sports in general are part of our tea-time discussions and you will have people dissecting bouts at tea stalls and bus stands. It is ingrained in the normal psyche of the state,” quipped Kuldeep.But what Haryana also did better than other traditional wrestling hotbeds like Maharashtra, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan was to adapt to mat wrestling earlier and make it an integral part of the system. The reason behind top Indian wrestlers moving to Haryana is the unmatched legacy and quality the state boasts of in the sport. (Express Photo by Gajendra Yadav)“Akharas in Haryana realised that having a mat was not an option but a necessity. When I was a wrestler back in the 1990s, we would practise both on mud and mat. As I transitioned into coaching, wrestling moved to the mat completely,” he said.Story continues below this adAfter Sushil Kumar’s Olympic medal in 2008, there was an astronomical boom.“The admissions in akharas increased, people started focusing more on mat wrestling and the culture around it started developing,” the coach recalled.Sushil brought another medal home from the 2012 London Olympics. Yogeshwar Dutt also won a bronze there and then came Sakshi Malik at Rio 2016, Bajrang Punia and Ravi Dahiya at Tokyo 2020, and Aman Sehrawat at Paris 2024.“The subsequent medals gave rise to a system which produced quality wrestlers every year. The assembly line was self-sustaining.”Story continues below this adThree of Kuldeep’s wards: Sujeet Kalkal (freestyle 65 kg), Nitesh Siwach (Greco-Roman 97 kg), and Aman (Greco-Roman 77 kg) will represent India at the ongoing Asian Games.Apart from Kuldeep’s akhara in Sonepat, the likes of Chhatrasal Stadium in New Delhi, where Sushil developed as a wrestler, has also produced other Olympic medallists including Ravi and Aman.When it comes to women wrestlers, Rohtak’s Sir Chhotu Ram Stadium remains one of the biggest sources, producing India’s only woman wrestling medallist, Sakshi.Challenges for womenWhile the male wrestlers were coming through the system, societal pressure and norms largely kept women away from the mat.Story continues below this ad“It was a challenge. I don’t remember women wrestlers when I was competing. The whole thinking was ‘why should girls wrestle?’” said Mandeep, the head coach at the Chhotu Ram Stadium.According to him, change came when the Phogat sisters – Geeta and Babita – won medals at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.“I started as a coach around 2010 and we used to train only a handful of girls here at the stadium. The CWG medals were big but even after that there were only 10-12 girls here,” Mandeep said. Coach Mandeep during a training session at the Chhotu Ram Stadium in Rohtak. (Express Photo by Praveen Khanna)It was Sakshi’s medal that propelled the stadium to fame and resulted in more girls taking up the sport.Story continues below this ad“Sakshi’s medal was big. Within a week of her medal, we received many enquiries about admission that after a point, we had to stop,” he recalled.A decade later, three of the academy girls are part of the Indian team at Aichi-Nagoya.“The academy has grown. Half the Indian team is from here and it has happened because the focus is on developing a system where there are multiple contenders for the same spot,” explained Mandeep.Another reason is that success in the sport brought a lot of focus on the grassroots.Story continues below this ad“Parents became very active. If parents are passionate about a sport, it starts picking up. Kids wrestle at school, they do it on the playground and that stays with them,” Mandeep said.“I have met a lot of parents who closely follow what their kids do,how much diet they need, what their supplement requirements are. All of this creates an ecosystem that keeps churning out wrestlers.”In Haryana, wrestling isn’t just a sport, it’s the state’s most reliable source of pride, passports and paychecks.