It is time for Indian women to chase their dreams, make it big, and bust many myths.
Geeta Phogat is a female wrestler from India who won India's first ever gold medal in women's wrestling in the 55 kg freestyle category at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and is sponsored by the JSW Sports Excellence Program. She comes from a Hindu Jat family of Balali village in Bhiwani district, Haryana. Her father Mahavir Singh, a former wrestler himself, is also her coach. She had earlier won gold in the 2009 Commonwealth Wrestling Championship. She qualified for the 2012 London Olympics but could not win a medal.
She is the first-ever Indian woman wrestler to have qualified for the Olympics. Phogat won a gold medal in the Wrestling FILA Asian Olympic Qualification Tournament that concluded at Almaty, Kazakhstan in April 2012. She has undergone rigorous training at the Netaji Subhas National Institute of Sports, (NSNIS), Patiala, under the guidance of chief coach O.P. Yadav and foreign expert Ryan Dobo. She has numerous other international medals to her credit, including three consecutive medals in the Asian Cadet Championships in 2003, 2004 and 2005. Geeta shot to the limelight when she won India's first ever gold medal in women's wrestling in the 55kg freestyle category at the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
Geeta's father Mahavir Singh, a former wrestler himself, is also her coach and she has five sisters all of whom are wrestlers too. Geeta's father braved severe criticism as he made his teenaged daughters slug it out along with village boys in the dangal. The siblings not only proved their family's unorthodox viewpoint, but created a sort of record by winning five gold medals for the country in international championships in 2009.
Geeta (55 kg) and Babita (51 kg) won golds in the Commonwealth Championships held at Jalandhar, while Ritu (44 kg), Priyanka (51 kg), Vinesh (49 kg) followed up their elder sisters' feat with golds in the Asian Cadet Championships in Pune.
Please view the clips below to get inspired by these girls who have inspired the orthodox community of Jats of Haryana where the sex ratio for females` is dismal.