Witness

India’s top female wrestler tells her storyIn December 2023, Sakshi Malik quit professional wrestling. She was India’s best-known female wrestler – the first and only female wrestler to win a medal at the Olympics – with fights both ongoing and ahead of her. It was an extraordinary gesture, a culmination of her and many other Indian wrestlers’ fight against the former President of the Wrestling Foundation of India (WFI), Brij Bhushan Singh.It is a fight that had seen her willing to risk all she had achieved, including the Olympic medal itself. No athlete ends their career when they could still be in the game. But Sakshi has always gone against the grain. In this fiery memoir, she tells her story from her childhood, her introduction to wrestling in Rohtak, her win at the Rio Olympics and her post-Olympics journey, her struggles and triumphs over injury and self-doubt and, finally, her most recent public battle with the administration of the WFI that has played out on the streets of New Delhi. Interspersed through her story are fascinating insights into the world of women’s wrestling in India – training, camp life, body image issues, dating, finances and what it takes to be an elite international wrestler. Gripping, moving and insightful, this is a book of rare candour and courage – one which will be seen as a sporting classic.