VIJENDER SINGH
Silver: Boxing, men’s middleweight; Beijing 2008.
Published : Jul 28, 2016 19:35 IST
He is the poster boy of Indian boxing. He has achieved in boxing what no other Indian has. He has acted in a Bollywood movie and walked the ramp too. He has also had a sensational run in the professional circuit, winning the WBO Asia Pacific Super Middleweight Championship.
> Read: 'Vijender is a winner'
Yet Vijender will always be known as India’s first boxer to win an Olympic medal. The silver medal he won in Beijing 2008 catapulted him and Indian boxing to the front pages of newspapers and primetime television.
Vijender made his mark as a 17-year-old when he won a silver medal at the Afro-Asian Games in Hyderabad in 2003.
After making an unremarkable Olympic debut in Athens in 2004 in the welterweight division, Vijender made history four years later in Beijing, winning the sliver, which he ensured after vanquishing Carlos Gongora of Ecuador in the middleweight quarterfinal.