After Sandeep Tomar’s heroic Olympic qualification effort on Sunday, another Indian-origin wrestler, Vinod Kumar Dahiya has secured a spot at the 2016 Rio Games. However, the Haryana-born grappler will be representing Australia in the 66 kg Greco Roman event.
Born in the small village of Khanda in Northern Haryana, he shifted to Australia in 2010. The immense competition for an international slot is reported to be the reason for his shift. Moving to the country as an international student, Vinod climbed the college wrestling hierarchy.
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In six years, he won 20 across state, national and international tournaments in Australia. The 30-year old is a product of the Padmashree Satpal Pahalwan akhada, the same that trained Olympic medallists such as Sushil Kumar and Yogeshwar Dutt.
During a radio conversation, he said, “I have been out of work for the last six months, and have no money at all. I’m lucky I have people around, who help me with money, when I need it and I hope I can repay them in Rio.”
Having worked odd jobs, including a courier delivery guy, he claims to have no bank balance. He added, “I have no savings, I don’t regret it because, I put all my life into wrestling, so it was totally worth it. Now that I have qualified, I hope this will help me attain a higher training standard, with some financial help from Australian government.”
Vinod began wrestling at the age of eight, participating in various state and national ‘dirt wrestling’ competitions. During his time in Australia, he was picked up by local club United wrestling, which was interestingly also run by an Indian, Kuldip Bassi.
Bassi was also the former Wrestling Australia President, during the late 90’s. Vinod is a six-time national champion in his category. Having climbed the hierarchy in India, the struggle to garner an Olympic berth would take too long for him.
In his very first tournament in Aussie colours, Vinod convincingly won gold at the Oceania Championship last year. He has gone strength to strength since then and is even being considered one of the front runners for Greco Roman gold.
India has only one qualifier in Hardeep Singh for the Greco-Roman genres.
In this case, India’s loss is Australia’s gain.
