Bajrang Punia is an Indian wrestler, who represents India at international level since 2013. He is an Asian Games gold medalist and ranked World’s No. 1 wrestler under his weight category for his performance consistency in international championships.

He was born in a village of Haryana and started learning wrestling at the age of seven from a local ‘akhada’. He was encouraged by his father to pursue wrestling as his career and began his journey to the international field from the Asian Wrestling Championships. In 2013, he made his international debut with this championship, where he finished in 3rd place and won a bronze medal. He took part in the World Wrestling Championships in the same following year and won a bronze medal after becoming 3rd again.

In the very next year, he participated in 2014 Asian Games for the very first time and place 2nd. He won a silver medal in men’s freestyle 61kg category at that championship. Even in the Asian Wrestling Championship of 2014 he won a silver medal and  escalated the hopes of becoming a gold medalist in his near-future.

In 2018 Commonwealth Games, Bajrang fulfilled his long-awaited desire and won a gold medal in the men’s freestyle 65kg category by defeating Kane Charig. In this same year, he won a silver medal at the World Wrestling Championship and declared as the World’s No.1 wrestler in the 65kg category for his phenomenal form in that championship. Apart from wrestling, he is very fond of football and basketball games in outdoor sports. Currently, he serves Indian Railway at the sports quota and works on the post of TTE.

(as Compiled by Madhushree Das Ghosh)(Profile Image from Facebook)