‘I owe my success to guru Hanuman’

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Wrestler Naveen Mor, a product of the Guru Hanuman akhara in old Delhi, clinched two gold medals at the recently-conluded World Police and Fire Games in Ireland.

Mor, who won the 130kg freestyle and 130kg Greco-Roman events, gave credit to his late coach Padam Shri Guru Hanuman for the feat.
“I owe all my success to my guru Hanumanji. He maintained discipline in the akhara and believed in punctuality. He is my idol,” the Haryana Police sub-inspector told this paper.
This institution has given a number of international wrestlers to the country including the likes of Dara Singh, Satpal, Anuj Chowdhary and Rajiv Tomer to name a few.
Sharing his experiences of the Police Games, the 25-year-Mor said, “About 80 countries took part in the Games at Belfast, Northern Ireland. I got the chance to interact with wrestlers from different countries and tried to learn of their food habits and their style of training. I found most of them non-vegetarians, while we Indians were vegetarians.”
Mor, who took up the sport at the age of 13, said his family’s support had played a big role in taking up wrestling.
“There were four international players including wrestling, kabaddi, boxing, and lawn tennis in my family. Basically, we are agriculturist and come from village Larsauli in Sonipat district from Haryana, but we are sports lovers,” said Mor, a silver medallist at the 2011 Commonwealth Championships in Melbourne.
Asked about the flaws he wanted to work on, the Haryana lad said, “I want to be fit. For the last three-four years, I was down with a shoulder injury and before the World Police Games in 2011, I suffered a knee injury for which I had two operations. Fitness tops my priority chat.”
Despite the knee trouble, Mor bagged the 130kg category gold at the 2011 World Police and Fire Games in New York.
Mor is planning to participate in the national championship and the all India Police Games in November, before he competes in the Commonwealth Champion-ship at Scotland in December.