Sweet Revenge Is Like 'Icing On The Cake’ For Olympic Bronze Medalist Bajrang Punia

New Delhi: It was a revenge bout! Not many people are aware of the fact that today, Bajrang Punia has won the Olympic Bronze medal and has taken sweet revenge from his opponent also. On Saturday, the moment Bajrang came to know about his opponent for the Bronze medal contest of the Tokyo Olympics, he must have thought, what a day to beat him and win Olympic Medal and take revenge for a defeat of 2019.

 Two years back  Kazakhstan’s Daulet Niyazbekov had defeated Bajrang in the Semi-final of the world Wrestling championships 2019. That is the reason, today Bajrang was more motivated to beat Daulet and did not give him an inch and outclassed him with a score of 8-0. Daulet Niyazbekov, who lost to Aliyev in the quarter-finals, is a more reputed wrestler in this weight category. The Kazakh is a three-time Asian champion and has two world championship medals to his name.

Punia’s father Balwan Punia was delighted about his son’s achievement. He said, for me, this Bronze medal is akin to a Gold medal. “He fulfilled my dream. This is a Gold medal for me. He had told me that he will not come back empty-handed,” he said. Bajrang is a hardworking wrestler and today got the best medal of his life.

Bajrang is a three-time world championships medallist. He won a bronze in the 2019 World Championships and won a silver in 2018, both in the 65kg category. He had won a bronze at the world championships in 2013 in the 60 kg category. He is also the reigning Commonwealth and Asian games champion of the 65kg category, having won the Gold medal in 2018 in both the Games. He had won a silver medal in the 61kg category in the CWG and Asian Games in 2014 respectively.

 Bajrang started wrestling at the age of 7. He belongs to a family of a rural background in Khudan village of Jhajjar district in the state of Haryana. As Bajrang was not born with a silver spoon so he had to face many monetary hardships during his initial days. However, it was his friend cum guru the famous wrestler YogeshwarDutt who has always supported him. As we know that people of this country will be interested to gather more and more information about the Olympic Bronze medalist wrestler, here are full details of Wrestler Bajrang Punia.

 Name: Bajrang Punia

Date of Birth: February 26, 1994

Home location: Sonipat, Haryana

Sport: Wrestling

Training Base: SAI NRC Sonipat

Personal Coach: Emzarios Bentinidis

National Coach: Jagmander Singh

Achievements

●Olympic Games – 1 Bronze Medal

● World Championship -1 Silver and 2 Bronze

● Asian Championship – 2 Gold, 3 Silver, 2 Bronze medals

● Asian Games – 1 Gold and 1 Silver

● Commonwealth Games- 1 Gold and 1 Silver

Key Govt. Interventions

● Preparatory training camp in Russia for Olympic Games

● Preparatory training camp in Michigan, USA for two months along with his support staff

● Preparatory training camp in USA, Russia and Georgia and prior to Senior World Championship 2019 (Qualification event)

● Participation in Ali Aliev, Tbilisi G.P, Asian Championships, YaaarDogu and MatteoPellicone Ranking tournaments which was provided by TOPS and ACTC

● Supplements and Mats during lockdown (COVID)

● Sport S&C Equipments

● Visa support through MYAS and MEA for international players as sparring partners

● Visa facilitation for Bajrang and support team to Russia for Olympic preparation

● Inclusion of personal coach and support staff during the national Camps

TOPS :  Rs. 1,47,40,348

ACTC:   Rs. 59,07,151

TOTAL: Rs. 2,06,47,499

Details of coaches

Grassroot Level:-Virender 

Development Level: Rampal 

Elite Level: Jagmander Singh / EmzariosBentinidis.