Sushil Kumar

     Sushil Kumar (born May 26, 1983) is an Indian World Champion wrestler who won the gold medal in the 66 kg freestyle competition at the FILA 2010 World Wrestling Championships, a silver medal in the Men's 66kg Freestyle Wrestling event at the 2012 London Olympics and a bronze medal in the Men's 66kg Freestyle Wrestling event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which made him the first Indian to win back to back individual Olympic medals. Sushil Kumar competed against Tatsuhiro Yonemitsu of Japan in the London Olympics finals. Kumar defeated Leonid Spiridonov of Kazakhstan in the repechage round to win the bronze in Beijing Olympics. This was the second medal for India in wrestling, and the first since K D Jadhav's bronze medal at the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games. On July 2009, he received the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna - India's highest honour for sportspersons.

      Sushil Kumar belongs to a Jat family who comes from the village Baprola near Najafgarh in South West Delhi. Kumar's father Diwan Singh was a DTC bus driver and mother Kamla Devi a housewife. He was inspired to take up wrestling by his cousin Sandeep and his father who was himself a pehlwan (wrestler). Sandeep quit wrestling as the family could only support one wrestler. Kumar trained at the akhada (wrestling school) in the Chhatrasal Stadium from the age of 14. With minimal funds and poor training facilities for wrestling in India, even for the 2008 Olympic team, his family made sure he obtained the necessary dietary supplements by sending him tinned milk, ghee and vegetables.He is a vegetarian.

      Kumar started training at the Chhatrasal Stadium's akhada at the age of 14. Trained at the akhada by Indian pehlwans Yashvir and Ramphal, and later by Arjuna awardee Satpal and then at the Railways camp by coach Gyan Singh, Sushil endured tough training conditions which included sharing a mattress with a fellow wrestler and sharing a dormitory with twenty others. at the age of 18 he became state champ.His first success came at the World Cadet Games in 1998 where he won the gold medal in his weight category. He followed this up with a gold in the Asian Junior Wrestling Championship in 2000.

    Moving out of the junior competition, Sushil Kumar won the bronze medal at the Asian Wrestling Championships in 2003 and followed that up with a gold medal at the Commonwealth Wrestling Championships. Sushil Kumar placed fourth in the World Championships in 2003, but this went largely unnoticed by the Indian media as he fared badly in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, in the 60 kg class placing 14th. He won gold medals at the Commonwealth Wrestling Championships in 2005 and 2007. He ranked seventh in the 2007 World Wrestling Championships and won a bronze medal in 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. He also qualified for 2012 Summer Olympics taking place at London and won a silver medal by defeating a wrestler from Kazakhstan.He became the first Indian to win 2 olympic medals