If someone had told Nitesh Siwach 11 years ago that he would one day win an Asian Games wrestling medal, he would have scarcely believed the prediction. After all, at that time, he had sustained a serious knee injury which kept the youngster away from the mat for more than 18 months.

It was then that Nitesh’s father Anand and uncle Naveen asked him to assist them in their dairy work – which involved fetching buffalo milk from their village Jagsi near Gohana and selling it at their shop in Panipat. The 23-year-old’s journey to the silver medal in the men’s 97kg Greco-Roman category at Aichi-Nagoya has been an eventful one. Though he couldn’t win the gold, he became the first Indian Greco-Roman grappler since 1962 (Ganpat Andalkar, 97+kg gold, and Malwa Singh 52 kg gold) to make the final.

“Nitesh suffered a knee injury in 2015. It was in a bad condition. Post the operation, he was at the village home and we asked him to help us with our dairy work. We would go on our motorcycle at 4am to buy milk from families nearby and sell it,” Anand said, while reflecting on his son’s achievement.

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It’s a story of determination and dedication to the sport, but the injury could have nipped a promising wrestling career in the bud, as Nitesh himself recalled after the medal in Japan.

“When the injury happened, I worked with my father and uncle. Then I asked my family to give me six months in wrestling. This medal is due to their and my persistence,” the grappler told reporters.

On Thursday, Nitesh first scored a 7-1 win over Turkmenistan’s Amanberdi Agamammedov before a 9-0 win by technical superiority over Hangzhou Asian Games bronze medallist Mongolian Gankhuyag Ganbaatar. But he lost the final to home favourite Yuri Nakazto 4-0.

It was Anand’s love for wrestling that had led to Nitesh’s initiation in the sport. He would accompany his father to village dangals and train at the local akhara before the family decided to send him to train under former national champion and coach Om Prakash Dahiya at Pratap Sports School in Kharkhoda.

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Dahiya remembers Nitesh as a thin boy, whom he advised to become a Greco-Roman wrestler.

“His upper body muscles were strong but his opponents would often grab his legs. So I advised him to train in Greco-Roman,” says Dahiya, a disciple of 1970 Asian Games heavyweight champion Chandgi Ram.

The coach talked about how his ward had worked on his upper body strength.

“Nitesh would train with a dummy weighing 100-120 kg trying throwdowns as well as upper side movements. I also send him videos of Greco-Roman wrestlers like London Olympics champion Ghasem Rezaei of Iran,” says Dahiya.

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Post his recovery from the knee injury, Nitesh would rejoin training at the school and go on to win the cadet Asian silver medal in 2019. Following his selection in the national camp in 2021, the Haryana wrestler would win the U-23 Worlds bronze in 2022 before a bronze and silver at the U-23 Asian championships in 2023 and 2024. Earlier this year, Nitesh won the silver at the Asian Championships in Bishkek, an upgrade on his bronze medal in 2025.

While the Siwach family built a home in Panipat, Anand says the family also gave full attention to the youngster’s wrestling aspirations.

“We would not attend functions or even celebrate festivals sometimes to support his training. We used to earn Rs 15,000 every month and most of it was spent on his diet. We would save milk and ghee and take it to Kharkhoda and later to nationals camps for him. I used to wrestle in village dangals and never fought a big fight. But Nitish has realised my dream of winning a medal for India,” the proud father adds.