Punia spoke to Everything Experiential about his first Olympic exposure and more.

Born in the Khudan village of Jhajjar district of Haryana, Bajrang Punia began wrestling at the age of 7. He has had an illustrious career winning several accolades along the way. He has won a silver and two bronze medals at the World Championships, a gold and a silver at the Asian Games. 

Punia has also received national recognition in the form of the Arjuna Award in 2015, Padma Shri and Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Awards in 2019. He was also given the FICCI India Sports Award in 2020.

After going through multiple struggles in his life, he entered the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 ranked No. 1 in the 65kgs category, he has not only refined his skills and techniques but is also determined to keep pushing towards glory to the best of his abilities and make his nation proud.

Punia spoke to Everything Experiential about his first Olympic exposure and more.

Excerpts:

This is your first Olympic exposure, how does feel to be at this stage of your professional career?

These are going to be my first Olympics and it is of course special for me because representing their country at the Olympic stage is every athlete’s dream. My focus is on performing to the best of my ability in the challenge in front of me and come back with a medal

What are your aspirations and learnings from the Olympic Games?

I have won medals at almost every stage so far but like every other athlete’s dream I want to win a medal for my country at the biggest sporting competition and that’s what motivate me to give my 100 percent every day.

In your view, what is the future of wrestling in India?

During the childhood days I followed my elder brother onto the mud akhara. The only reason I started wrestling was to skip school to play at local mud akharas and watch local dangals. My father who himself was a wrestler always wanted that either of his sons should go into wrestling. I used to play local tournaments to get some extra money.

When Sushil Kumar won medal at Olympics in 2008, I decided to take it seriously and told my father that I want do wrestling, my family then shifted to Sonipat so that I can train at SAI centre and from that moment I always wanted to win a medal for my country at the Olympics

What is your word of advice to the young wrestling aspirants?

My only advice to young wrestlers is to give their 100 percent and never lose hope, listen to the coaches and work hard. There will be times when things will not be easy, even I suffered a lot of injuries in my career but I always focus to come back stronger.

Tells us about the importance of association of brands like Thums Up in amplifying sports like wrestling?

It is good to have brands working with us as it helps tell our stories to the world. Our sport has a long history and tradition, and wrestlers put in a lot of work to win our country medals. Such partnerships definitely work well to generate more interest for our sport.