Haryana Sports and Sportspersons: Medals and Facts

Haryana was carved out of Punjab on 1 November 1966 and holds about two per cent of the population of the country by the Census of 2011, yet in wrestling, boxing, shooting, athletics and hockey it sends a share of the Indian contingent, and brings home a share of the medals, out of all proportion to its size. For HPSC, HSSC, Haryana Police and SSC papers this chapter is a matching exercise: the athlete, the sport, the event and the village or district. Learn the names in the groups below rather than as a flat list, because that is how the questions are framed.

Why a small state produces so many athletes

Three things come together in rural Haryana. The first is the akhara, the village wrestling pit, which has been part of the social life of the region for generations and still trains boys and girls in the morning and evening. The second is the stadium and school network: the Motilal Nehru School of Sports at Rai in Sonipat district, set up by the state in the nineteen seventies, is a residential sports school of long standing, the Sports Authority of India runs training centres in the state, and Rai also houses the sports university of Haryana. The third is state policy. Haryana offers large cash awards to winners of medals at the Olympic, Asian and Commonwealth Games, reserves posts in government service for medal winners, and gives the Bhim Award, the highest sporting honour of the state, to its outstanding sportspersons. A young wrestler in a Haryana village therefore sees a path that runs from the akhara to a stadium, a scholarship, a job and a medal.

Olympic medal winners from Haryana

Three of these entries carry a first that examiners ask on its own. Vijender Singh won the first Olympic medal for India in boxing. Sakshi Malik became the first Indian woman wrestler to win an Olympic medal. Neeraj Chopra, from Khandra village in Panipat district, won the first Olympic gold for India in athletics with his javelin throw at Tokyo, and added a silver at Paris; he has also been a world champion in the event. Manu Bhaker, of Goria village in Jhajjar district, took two bronze medals at the same Games at Paris, one in the individual ten metre air pistol and one in the mixed team event with Sarabjot Singh of Ambala. Aman Sehrawat, also from Jhajjar district, is the youngest Indian to have won an Olympic medal.

Wrestling and the akharas

Wrestling is the sport of the state, and the line of champions runs long. Master Chandgi Ram, a Hind Kesari and a Padma Shri, was the wrestler who took the sport from the akhara to the mat and then opened it to women by training his own daughters. The sisters of Balali village in Charkhi Dadri district carried that further: Geeta Phogat was the first Indian woman wrestler to qualify for the Olympic Games and the first to win a Commonwealth Games gold, at Delhi in 2010; Babita Phogat followed her on to the Commonwealth podium; and Vinesh Phogat became the first Indian woman wrestler to win gold at both the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games. One trap is worth noting here. Sushil Kumar, the wrestler with two Olympic medals, is from Delhi and not from Haryana, although he trained in the same akhara culture; questions often slip his name into a list of Haryana wrestlers.

Boxing: Bhiwani and after

Bhiwani is called the little Cuba of Indian boxing, and the name comes from the Bhiwani Boxing Club, where a generation of boxers trained under the coach Jagdish Singh. Several of them went to the Beijing Olympics of 2008, among them Vijender Singh, Akhil Kumar and Jitender Kumar, and it was Vijender who came back with the bronze. The next generation produced Amit Panghal of Rohtak district, an Asian Games gold medallist and a world championship silver medallist in the light flyweight class. Women boxers from the state have taken the Youth and Asian titles in numbers as well.

Hockey, cricket and kabaddi

Shahabad Markanda, a small town in Kurukshetra district, is known as the nursery of Indian women hockey; Rani Rampal, who captained the national team and has received both the Khel Ratna and the Padma Shri, learnt the game there, and so did the former men's captain and drag-flicker Sandeep Singh. Savita Punia, the goalkeeper of the women's team, comes from Sirsa district. In cricket the great name is Kapil Dev, the Haryana Hurricane, who played his domestic cricket for Haryana, led India to the World Cup of 1983 and led Haryana to its Ranji Trophy title in the season of 1990 and 1991; Chetan Sharma and Ajay Jadeja also came out of the state side. Kabaddi, played in every village, gives the state a steady supply of players to the national team and to the professional league.

Athletics, shooting and para sport

Beyond Neeraj Chopra, the state has long supplied throwers to Indian athletics, among them the discus thrower Seema Punia of Sonipat district, a Commonwealth Games medallist. In shooting, Manu Bhaker and Sarabjot Singh are the best known of a large group trained at ranges in the state. Para sport is the newer success. Deepa Malik, from Haryana, won a silver in the shot put at the Rio Paralympics of 2016 and was the first Indian woman to win a Paralympic medal; she later headed the Paralympic Committee of India. Sumit Antil of Khewra village in Sonipat district won the javelin gold in the F64 class at the Tokyo Paralympics and defended it at Paris, setting world records on the way, and Amit Kumar Saroha of Sonipat has been a club and discus thrower in the F51 class for many years. The pattern of the state repeats itself in para sport: the same districts, the same events, the same village training grounds.

How the state supports sport

The sports policy of Haryana rests on four legs: cash awards for medals at the Olympic, Asian and Commonwealth Games, which are among the largest offered by any state government; reservation of posts in government service for medal winners; scholarships and stipends for trainees at state centres; and the state honours, of which the Bhim Award is the highest. Stadiums such as the Tau Devi Lal Stadium at Panchkula and the Nahar Singh Stadium at Faridabad host national events, and the state regularly finishes near the top of the medal table at the national school and youth games. For the exam, remember the Bhim Award as the state award, the Arjuna Award and the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna as the national awards, and keep them apart.