Delhi: Bajrang Punia brought in the first gold medal in wrestling for India at the ongoing Commonwealth Games 2022.
He defeated Canadian wrester Lachlan McNeil in the men’s 65kg freestyle wrestling final.
It may be mentioned that the Indian wrestler is also an Olympic bronze medalist and has another Commonwealth gold as well as a silver to his name.
Apart from these, he has one silver and two bronze medals in the World Championships.
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Punia was born in the Khudan village of Jhajjar district in the state of Haryana, India. He began wrestling at the age of seven and was encouraged to pursue the sport by his father.
Punia grew up in a rural area. His family did not have money for traditional sports. Instead, he had to partake in free sports like Wrestling and Kabaddi.
Punia’s father was a wrestler as well and at a young age, his family enrolled him in a local mud wrestling school. Punia started to skip school to go to wrestling practice.
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He went to Chattarsal Stadium in 2008 where he was trained by Ramphal Mann. In 2015, his family moved to Sonepat so that he can attend a regional centre of the Sports Authority of India.
Currently, he works in the Indian Railways in the post of Gazetted officer OSD Sports.