Vijender Singh

Vijender Singh Biography

Vijendra Singh Beniwal is an Indian player who has bagged medal in Olympics in boxing. He was born on 29^th October 1985 in Kalwash in Bhiwani district of Haryana. His father is Mahipal Singh and his mother is Krishna. He has one elder brother Manoj. After getting a bachelor’s degree in a college at Bhiwani, he joined Bhiwani Boxing Club and started practicing boxing. His coach Jagdish Singh encouraged him and made him participate in many national level events.

He married Archana Singh, a software engineer on 17^th May 2011. His brother Manoj is also a boxer and he inspired Vijender a lot. He hailed from a poor family where his father worked as a bus driver. He was continuously defeated in the sub-junior boxing championships and this he took as a challenge to win later on. He also worked as a model to earn money. Later he took up a job at the Haryana Police department.

He won gold medal at the national championships in 2000 and in the Afro-Asian Games of 2003, he won silver medal. In 2006 Commonwealth Games he came out with a bronze medal and in the Asian Games of 2006 held at Doha also he was able to win a bronze. In 2008 Olympics held at Beijing, he defeated Emilio Correa of Cuba on 22^nd August 2008 and shared a bronze medal with the Indian wrestler Sushil Kumar.

He participated in ramp shows also and took up modeling as a part time job. He appeared on the game show 10 ka Dum by Salman Khan. He also appeared in the fourth session of the dance reality show Nach Baliye. He has great role in bringing the game of boxing back into the limelight in the Indian history. In September 2009, he became the top ranked boxer in the annual middle weight category with 2008 according to the announcement of the International Boxing Association. He won 2010 Asian Games also.

He was granted Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, the highest sporting award of India in July 2009. Though he was recommended for Padma Shree award in 2009, he was denied later on. But he received the same award in January 2010.

Published: N/A

Updated: July 31, 2012