Vinod Kumar Dahiya (born 7 August 1986), also known as Vinod Kumar, is an Indian-Australian

Greco-Roman The Greco-Roman civilization (; also Greco-Roman culture; spelled Graeco-Roman in the Commonwealth), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and countries that culturally—and so historically—were di ...

& freestyle Wrestler a competes in the 66 kg category.

Life and career

Dahiya was born on 7 August 1986 in the Indian village of

Khanda, Sonipat Khanda is a historical village in Sonipat district of Haryana, India. It is from Kharkhoda and from Sonipat. It is a part of the National Capital Region. Khanda has two Gram Panchayats ''Khanda Khas'' & ''Khanda Alman''. Two Sarpanchs elects ...

Haryana Haryana (; ) is an Indian state located in the northern part of the country. It was carved out of the former state of East Punjab on 1 Nov 1966 on a linguistic basis. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with less than 1.4% () of India's land ar ...

. He began wrestling in 1994, and joined Chhattarsal Stadium, Model Town (PadamShri

Satpal Singh Satpal Singh (born 1 February 1955), also known as Guru Satpal, is a wrestling coach and former wrestler of India. He was a Gold Medalist in 1982 Asian Games and a Bronze medalist in 1974 Asian Games. Today he is better known as the coach of Ol ...

's) coaching

akhara Akhara or Akhada (Sanskrit and Hindi: अखाड़ा, shortened to ''khara'' Hindi: खाड़ा) is an Indian word for a place of practice with facilities for boarding, lodging and training, both in the context of Indian martial artists o ...

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

in 1998. In 2001, while going to the National Championship in Kerala, Dahiya was pushed out of a moving night train by two men, one of whom was the father of a rival wrestler. Dahiya was discovered in the morning by rail workers who admitted him to a hospital. The injuries left him bed-ridden for a year, during which his weight dropped to 40 kg. His family members rejected the compensation offered by the perpetrators and launched legal action against them. In 2009, Dahiya finished third at the Australia Cup and decided to move to Australia. He gathered 17

lakh A lakh (; abbreviated L; sometimes written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; scientific notation: 105). In the Indian 2,2,3 convention of digit grouping, it is written as 1,00,000. For ex ...

from his relatives and by taking loans, and moved to

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

in 2010. For few days he done training at Rocksbank Camblefield, Melbourne and then went to Coach Leonid Babira at Sparta Wrestling Club.Due to shortage of money, he worked as a

newspaper hawker A newspaper hawker, newsboy or newsie is a street vendor of newspapers without a fixed newsstand. Related jobs included paperboy, delivering newspapers to subscribers, and news butcher, selling papers on trains. Adults who sold newspapers from f ...

bouncer A bouncer (also known as a doorman or door supervisor) is a type of security guard, employed at venues such as bars, nightclubs, cabaret clubs, stripclubs, casinos, hotels, billiard halls, restaurants, sporting events, schools, concerts, or m ...

, Security guard and

courier A courier is a person or organisation that delivers a message, package or letter from one place or person to another place or person. Typically, a courier provides their courier service on a commercial contract basis; however, some couriers are ...

. In 2014 he started training under Coach Konstantin Ermakovich at In2fitness National Training centre. Dahiya acquired Australian citizenship in 2015. He represented Australia for the first time at the 66 kg Greco-Roman event of the 2016 Oceania Wrestling Championships in New Zealand and won the gold medal. By 2016, he won six national championships in Australia. He won the silver medal at 2016 African & Oceania Wrestling Olympic Qualification Tournament and qualified for the

2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics ( pt, Jogos Olímpicos de Verão de 2016), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad ( pt, Jogos da XXXI Olimpíada) and also known as Rio 2016, was an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 20 ...

. He thus became the second Indian-born Australian wrestler to qualify for the Olympics. However, in July 2016, he was handed a four-year ban after failing a doping test conducted at the Olympic qualification tournament in April, and was subsequently removed from the Australian Olympic contingent.

References

External links

Profile at United World Wrestling
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dahiya, Vinod Kumar 1986 births Living people Australian male sport wrestlers Indian male sport wrestlers Sport wrestlers from Haryana Indian emigrants to Australia