The rags to riches story of few Indian athletes

#3 Vijender Singh

It was the quartet of Akhil, Vijender, Jitender and Dinesh from small Bhiwani of Haryana who stirred interest in boxing with their exploits in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Amongst them, it was Vijender’s gold medal that ensured the interest was sustained and encouraged the sports authorities to send the largest ever boxing contingent from India for the 2012 London Olympics. However, the path for the 2010 Asian Games gold-medallist and the winner of the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award was not laced with any kind of comfort.

His father was a bus driver with the Haryana roadways, and mother a homemaker. His father drove buses overtime so as to pay for Vijender and his brother’s schooling. He began practicising boxing at the Bhiwani Boxing Club, where national level boxer and coach Jagdish Singh recognized his talent for the first time. Fortunately for him, his elder brother Manoj managed to enter into the Indian Army in 1998 also with boxing credentials and decided to support Vijender’s career financially.

The first recognition for Vijender came when he won a bout in the state-level competition and a silver medal in his first sub-junior nationals in 1997. The rest as they say is history!