Sushil Kumar is an Indian freestyle wrestler from Najafgarh, Delhi, widely regarded as one of India's most decorated wrestlers in international competition. Competing in the men's freestyle 66 kg category, he became the first Indian individual athlete to win two Olympic medals in successive Games, with a bronze at Beijing 2008 and a silver at London 2012. He also won the gold medal at the 2010 World Wrestling Championships in Moscow, becoming the first Indian wrestler in over half a century to claim a world title.
| Full name | Sushil Kumar Solanki |
|---|---|
| Born | 26 May 1983, Baprola, Najafgarh, Delhi |
| Sport | Wrestling (freestyle) |
| Weight category | 66 kg / 74 kg (freestyle) |
| Coach | Satpal Singh (Chhatrasal Stadium) |
| Club | Chhatrasal Stadium akhara, Delhi |
| Employer | Indian Railways |
| Major honours | Padma Shri (2011), Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna (2009), Arjuna Award (2005) |
Sushil Kumar was born into a Jat family in Baprola village in the Najafgarh area of south-west Delhi. His father, Diwan Singh, was a driver with the Delhi Transport Corporation, and his cousin Sandeep was also a wrestler, which influenced his early entry into the sport. At the age of fourteen he joined the Chhatrasal Stadium akhara in north Delhi, training under Mahabali Satpal, a former Asian Games gold medallist and Arjuna Awardee, who became his lifelong mentor.
Sushil first came to national notice by winning the World Cadet Games gold in 1998 and the Asian Junior Wrestling Championship in 2000. He represented India at the 2003 Commonwealth Wrestling Championships, taking gold, and at the 2003 Asian Wrestling Championships, where he won silver.
Making his Olympic debut at the 2004 Athens Games in the 60 kg freestyle event, he finished fourteenth, an experience he later described as a turning point in his preparation.
At the Beijing Olympics, competing in the 66 kg freestyle category, Sushil won the bronze medal through the repechage round, defeating Leonid Spiridonov of Kazakhstan. The medal was India's first Olympic wrestling medal since K. D. Jadhav's bronze at Helsinki in 1952.
In September 2010, at the World Wrestling Championships in Moscow, Sushil won the 66 kg gold, becoming the first Indian to win a senior world wrestling title since K. D. Jadhav's era. Weeks later he claimed the gold medal at the Delhi Commonwealth Games on home soil.
At the London Olympics, Sushil reached the 66 kg freestyle final, defeating opponents from Belarus, the United States and Kazakhstan, before losing to Tatsuhiro Yonemitsu of Japan in the gold-medal bout. The silver made him the first Indian individual athlete to win medals at two consecutive Olympic Games.
Sushil won gold at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games in the 74 kg freestyle category, and again at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. He also took gold at the 2018 Tbilisi Grand Prix. A long-running selection dispute with Narsingh Yadav preceded the 2016 Rio Olympics, in which Sushil did not compete after the courts upheld Yadav's selection.
Sushil Kumar married Savi, daughter of his coach Satpal Singh, in 2011. He has been employed with Indian Railways and was promoted to Officer on Special Duty (OSD) in the Railways' sports department. In May 2021, he was arrested by Delhi Police in connection with the death of a young wrestler, Sagar Dhankhar, at Chhatrasal Stadium; the matter remains before the courts.
Sushil Kumar's success is credited with reviving popular interest in wrestling in India and inspiring the rise of a new generation of grapplers, including Yogeshwar Dutt, Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia. His back-to-back Olympic medals broke a long drought in Indian individual Olympic performance and led to greater institutional investment in wrestling at the akhara level, particularly at Chhatrasal Stadium, which has produced multiple Olympic medallists.