Dronacharya Awardee former national wrestling coach Roshan Lal Sachdev has died of Covid-19. He passed away on Wednesday at the age of 78. Confirming the news on Thursday, his son Gaurav Sachdev told Healthwire that he was tested positive for COVID-19 just two days ago.
Gaurav said that his wife has also been tested positive and has been quarantined.
Roshan Lal Sachdev, coach of the Indian wrestling team for 20 years, was also the general secretary of the Indian Style Wrestling Federation. He served as a coach of the Railway team for 30 years and under his guidance it won the team title at the National Championship for 25 years.
Sachdev was associated as a coach or referee with at least eight World Championships including six Asian Games, cadet wrestling championship, juniors and seniors wrestling championships, two Olympics, two Commonwealth Games, and three Commonwealth Championships.
He held the position of the secretary-general of the Indian Style Wrestling Association of India for a long time and was awarded the Dronacharya Award in the year 2017 in recognition of his outstanding achievements in the field of coaching.
Roshan Lal, who held the post of coach and manager of the Indian team, got the real recognition due to clay wrestling. He taught many Asiad and Olympic medallists and gave his invaluable services to wrestling.
As coaches of the Indian national wrestling team and railway team, he trained wrestlers like Kartar, Satpal, Jagminder, Naresh, Rohtash, Gyan Singh, Kaka Pawar, Kripa Shankar, Ram Asare, Dharamvir, Satywan, Rajeev Tomar, Sujeet Mann, Kuldeep, and Sunil.
Wrestlers of the Railway team will always be thankful to him as he played a great role in helping them getting jobs and becoming champions. Dronacharya Awardee Mahasingh Rao, who is also the director of the Delhi’s Guru Hanuman Akhara, expressed his deep condolences on the death of Roshan Lal and paid his tribute. Mahasingh said that his demise is a great loss for the Indian style of wrestling.
