Ravi Kumar Dahiya

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Médailles olympiques

Participations1

Première participationTokyo 2020

Année de naissance1997

Réseaux sociaux

Biographie

An Olympics silver medallist, a world championships bronze medallist, a Commonwealth Games gold medal winner and three-time Asian champion, Ravi Kumar Dahiya is one of India’s finest wrestlers of recent times.

On his Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020, Ravi Kumar Dahiya became only the second Indian wrestler - after Sushil Kumar - to win an Olympic silver and the sixth Indian wrestler to win an Olympic medal.

At Tokyo, Ravi Kumar Dahiya began with dominating wins over Colombia’s Oscar Tigreros and Bulgarian Georgi Vangelov to make the men’s 57kg semi-finals.

In the last four, the Indian wrestler pulled off arguably the most impressive victory of his Olympic campaign. Trailing 9-5 against Kazakhstan’s Nurislam Sanayev with barely a minute left, Ravi Kumar Dahiya scored a two-point takedown and then pinned his opponent, earning a memorable victory by fall.

In the final, he fell to two-time world champion Zaur Uguev of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) but had done enough to return home with a historic silver medal.

The medal was certainly the biggest of the youngster’s career. But according to the people in his village of Nahri in Haryana, Ravi Kumar Dahiya had only realised his destiny.

Born on 12 December, 1997, Ravi Kumar Dahiya was introduced to wrestling at a very young age. His father Rakesh and both uncles were wrestlers and the sport was a way of life in his village.

Ravi Kumar Dahiya competed regularly in his village before heading to New Delhi’s Chhatrasal Stadium at the age of 12.

The Chhatrasal Stadium is considered India’s best wrestling school, where two-time Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar and Olympic bronze medallist Yogeshwar Dutt had trained, among several others.

Ravi Kumar Dahiya, a shy but gritty kid, trained hard under two-time Commonwealth champion Arun Dahiya but was unable to win a lot of titles early in his career.

It was discovered that Ravi Kumar Dahiya was anaemic (iron deficiency) and after that was treated, the youngster soon started fulfilling his talent.

Competing in the 57kg category, Ravi Kumar Dahiya won the junior national title in 2015 and a few months later, won silver in the world junior championship.

A knee injury, and subsequent surgery, in 2017 kept him out of action for a year but Ravi Kumar Dahiya soon bounced back with a silver at the 2018 World U23 Championships.

On his debut world championships in 2019, Ravi Kumar Dahiya beat former champion Yuki Takahashi en route to a bronze medal and earned a quota place for the Tokyo Olympics.

In 2020, Ravi Kumar Dahiya won gold at the Asian championships and later defended his title in 2021 and 2022, which made him the first-ever Indian to become a three time Asian wrestling champion.

At the Commonwealth Games in 2022, exactly one year and a day after his silver medal triumph at the Tokyo Olympics, Ravi Kumar Dahiya won the gold medal in Birmingham on August 7.

Ravi Dahiya defeated Nigeria’s Ebikewenimo Welson, a three-time Commonwealth Games medallist, in the final to clinch his maiden CWG medal.

Unfortunately, though, bouts with injuries meant Ravi Dahiya failed to make it to Paris 2024.

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