Indian wrestler Virender Singh made the nation proud as he won a gold medal in the men’s 74kg freestyle wrestling event at the 22nd Summer Deaflympics at Sofia in Bulgaria on Saturday.
The Delhi-based deaf and mute Indian defeated Oguz Donder of Turkey to win the coveted medal. Hiavorh Adamian and Aleksandr Ochirovich Tsoktoev won the bronze medals.
It has emerged that Singh trained with Olympic silver medalist Sushil Kumar as well as bronze medalist Yogeshwar Dutt. Actually, the Delhite won his third straight medal at the special Olympics.
Virender Singh is popularly known as Goonga Pehelwan or the mute wrestler in Hindi. He won India’s first and only gold medal at the 2005 Deaflympics at Melbourne in Australia and added a silver medal to his achievements at the World Deaf Wrestling Championships 2008 at Yerevan in Armenia.
Apart from wrestling, the 28-year-old is doing job as a clerk with the Haryana Power Corporation.
The Deaflympics may have not received the media coverage this year that the London Olympics got but debate was huge as the Indian contingent was tarnished by a tussle between two factions of the All India Sports Council of the Deaf.
Hopefully, Virender Singh's gold medal will inspire more athletes like him as well as attract some much needed attention from sponsors, promoters and the government to encourage people with special abilities to grab sports and excel.
