Whenever Indian wrestling is in the news, there has to be a Sushil Kumar connection. Such is the stature of the double Olympic medal-winning grappler. <img alt="Sandeep Tulsi Yadav" src="http://images.mid-day.com/2013/sep/Sandeep-Tulsi-Yadav.jpg" style="width: 500px; height: 634px;" /> Bronze boy! India&#39;s Sandeep Tulsi Yadav stands on the podium at the World Wrestling Championships in Budapest on Sunday. Pic/AFP But to think that Sushil could have something to do with the success of a young grappler here in Mumbai &mdash; hundreds of miles away from Sushil&rsquo;s Sonepat training ground &mdash; is surprising. Had it not been for Sushil, Sandeep Tulsi Yadav (25) would never have won the bronze medal in Budapest on Sunday when he made history by becoming India&rsquo;s first ever medal-winner at the World Championships in the Greco-Roman category. According to Jagmal Singh, Yadav&rsquo;s personal coach at the Sports Authority of India&rsquo;s (SAI) training facility in Kandivli, Sushil is the reason Yadav had to make the switch from Freestyle to the Greco-Roman category. u00a0&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been training Sandeep for over a decade here, but when he developed into a good wrestler at the senior stage, I was in a fix because Sandeep was in the same weight category as Sushil &mdash; 66 kg. Sushil is one of the world&rsquo;s best Freestyle wrestlers, so I knew Sandeep would struggle to beat him. That&rsquo;s the reason I told Sandeep to take up the Greco-Roman style,&rdquo; Jagmal told MiD DAY yesterday. Testing times The switch obviously wasn&rsquo;t smooth. &ldquo;Wrestling in India is all about Freestyle and with Sushil and Yogeshwar Dutt&rsquo;s success at the Olympics, people hardly know anything about Greco-Roman which is tougher and more technical. <img alt="Sushil Kumar" src="http://images.mid-day.com/2013/sep/Sushil-Kumar_2.jpg" style="width: 500px; height: 376px;" /> Sushil Kumar Sandeep had a little inclination towards lifts and pulls (needed for Greco-Roman wrestling), so I trained him simultaneously in both. Eventually, as fate would have it, he was better in Greco-Roman and is now a world-beater,&rdquo; added Jagmal. Such is the popularity of Freestyle wrestling in India, that Greco-Roman wrestlers face ridicule for their medal-less run. &ldquo;About a month back, Sandeep told me that he was disappointed at not having achieved any glory on the world stage. He would hear people saying things like, &lsquo;here come the Greco-Roman strugglers.&rsquo; At last... &ldquo;Sandeep has won medals at the Asian level and even in the Commonwealth Championships, but a world medal was missing. At the 2011 World Championships (in Turkey) he was ousted in the first round. But this time, I was confident he would do well because at his age, a wrestler is at his peak,&rdquo; explained Jagmal, who trains a bunch of 33 young grapplers at SAI Kandivli. At Budapest, Yadav first beat Moldova&rsquo;s Mihail Cosniceanu 6-2, before losing to South Korea&rsquo;s Han-Su Ryu in the quarter-finals. However, the Korean went on to win gold in the 66kg category and Yadav got his chance for a medal through the repechage route. He won his two repechage bouts. He first beat Sweden&rsquo;s Sharur Vardanyan and then got the better of Serbia&rsquo;s Aleksandar Maksimovic 4-0 for the bronze medal. Yadav rounded off India&rsquo;s best-ever show at the worlds with three medals after freestyle wrestlers, Amit Kumar Dahiya and Bajrang, won a silver and bronze in the 55 kg and 60 kg respectively. u00a0

World Championships' bronze-winning wrestler Sandeep Tulsi Yadav changed to Greco-Roman from Freestyle because his coach was convinced he wouldn't match Sushil Kumar in the same 66kg weight category

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