Aug 5, 2021
By: Mona Pachake
Credit: Twitter
Dahiya has bagged the silver medal in wrestling in the 57 kg category at the Tokyo Olympics | The 23-year old wrestler hails from Sonipat district, Haryana.
Credit: BCCL
Dahiya reached the finals by defeating the Kazakh wrestler Nurislam Sanayev | He became the first wrestler to enter the Olympics finals after Sushil Kumar did it in 2012.
Credit: BCCL
He started training at the age of 10 and was trained by Satpal Singh who is a wrestling coach and a former wrestling champion at the Chhatrasal Stadium | Satpal Singh was a former Asian Games gold medalist.
Credit: Wikipedia
Dahiya won the silver medal in the 55 kg freestyle category at the Junior World Wrestling Championships, 2015 in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil.
Credit: Twitter
In 2017, he was injured during the training and he did not participate in any tournaments for more than a year | He made a comeback in 2018 as he bagged the silver medal at the 2018 World U23 Wrestling Championship in Bucharest, Romania | That was India’s only medal at the competition.
Credit: BCCL
In the 2019 Pro Wrestling league, he represented the team Haryana Hammers and won the title | He was ranked fifth at the 2019 Asian Wrestling Championships in Xi'an, China.
Credit: BCCL
His debut World Championship was in 2019 | He defeated the European champion Arsen Harutyunyan.
Credit: Twitter
He won the bronze in the World Championship after losing to the eventual gold medalist Zaur Uguev | Dahiya was included in the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports' Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) after his medal win in October 2019.
Credit: BCCL
He also defeated the 2017 world champion Yuki Takahashi in the quarterfinals at the World Championships, thereby securing a place for the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Credit: BCCL