Mat Demon

Yogeshwar Dutt (33)

Wrestling, men's freestyle 65 kg

How he qualified: March 19, 2016, Astana

Achievements: 2 CWG golds, 1 Asian Games gold

Previous olympics: Bronze at London 2012

There is something obviously menacing about Yogeshwar Dutt and something oddly delicate. It's perhaps his broad shoulders, chiselled chest and ripped back not quite fitting in with his tiny waist. He's only 5 foot 7 inches, but he's easily the tallest Indian wrestler heading to Rio as the flag-bearer of the only individual sport in which the country has some sort of Olympic legacy.

Wrestling has been a way of life in India for centuries. The pehalwans who performed in royal courts were replaced in the modern era by exponents such as Chandgi Ram and Satpal Singh, who ran mud akhadas that preserved the old-world principles of the sport. Chandgi, who died in 2010, won a gold medal in the 1970 Asian Games and participated in Munich 1972, and Satpal, who still trains young aspirants at Delhi's Chhatrasal Stadium, travelled to Moscow 1980 before winning a gold in the 1982 Asian Games. The first Indian individual Olympic medal for India had also come in wrestling-Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav at Helsinki 1952-also the only one until tennis player Leander Paes broke the barren spell in Atlanta 44 years later.

Yogeshwar, therefore, has a history to protect, and the significance of wrestling to India's sporting destiny in this new Age of Revival is not lost on him. But, while he's mindful of how akhadas continue to serve as the ultimate nursery for fresh talent because of the discipline and the values they instil, Yogeshwar is under no illusions about what it takes to win an Olympic medal in a contemporary world.

"Have you seen Sultan?" he asks, almost without preamble at the Sports Authority of India centre in Sonepat during a training run. "A lot of it is simply rubbish," he says, dismissing the Salman Khan-starrer about an Indian wrestler that is breaking box-office records. "You can't train for the modern Olympics by tilling the land with oxen or carrying bricks up the stairs. You have to understand and respect the demands of the sport as it exists today. These methods from the 1940s won't work any longer."

Dutt, for example, belies his rustic background by training in a hypoxic chamber, where the altitude is simulated to 3,200 metres, to build stamina. He also alternates between cardio and weights in a regimen prepared by his trainers as he gets back in top physical shape after a 2015 that was spoiled by a spate of injuries, on the back of another injury-hit 2013. In between, just when the doubts had started to creep in, he won gold in the Incheon Asian Games in 2014 to rekindle the Olympic fire.

"When I won bronze at London, I felt empty-as if nothing had happened. People came and congratulated me, they pointed to the medal, but it somehow meant nothing. Who knows what will happen in Rio, but I always wanted gold," he says.

As he's training on the mat in the Sonepat wrestling hall, which is named after him and another double Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar, with veer ras poetry blaring from his phone as the background score, you catch Yogeshwar stealing occasional glances at an iconic photograph pinned on the wall. In it, he's on the Olympic podium in London, kissing the medal. His right eye is swollen to a point where you can't even see it under the folds of inflamed skin.

"On the mat, when you look into the eyes of your opponent, you know instantly whether or not you can take him," Dutt says, breaking the reverie. "I want the others to look into my eyes this time and see that I've come to win."