Entry with a boom, freestyle wrestler Deepak Punia isborn on 19 May 1999, in Jhajjar district, Haryana is currently in Tokyofighting for gold, he is qualified for semi-finals under 86kg category with thescore of 6-3 on Wednesday. His next match is against the USA’s David Taylor.
He was introduced to wrestling at a really young age, hewas 4-year-old when started playing it, and at the age of 12, he started earningmoney by playing the sport. In 2015, he became serious about the sport andstarted training at Chhatrasal Stadium, New Delhi with Coach Virender Chhara.
He started playing this sport, as his father andgrandfather were local competitors; his beginning in wrestling was because his cousin,Sunil Kumar used to earn money while playing this sport and represented Indialater in the 2018 U23 World Championships. It was his cousin only who introducedhim to Virender Chhara. His occupation is that he serves the Indian Army.
He admires Iranian wrestler Hassan Yazdani and wastitled as the 2019 Junior Freestyle of the Year by the United World Wrestling. Helikes spending time with friends and loves shopping. As for his career, he haswon many championships under freestyle 86kg.
He has won gold at the 2016 World Cadet Championship,2018 Asian Junior Championship, and the 2019 World Junior WrestlingChampionships. He has bagged silver medals in the 2018 World Junior WrestlingChampionships, 2019 World Championship, and 2021 Asian Championship. He has won2 bronze till now and both in the 2019 and the 2020 Asian championship.
His ambition is to get a medal in Tokyo Olympics, and forthat, he pulled out of Poland Open when he got his left hand injured so that hisOlympics medal may not stand at risk and settled for silver in WorldChampionship.
His semi-final is today against the USA, and he is only fewsteps away from the medal.