Good Sports: RITU PHOGAT GIVES UP WRESTLING FOR MMA
After winning a silver medal at the Under-23 World Wrestling Championships in 2017, Ritu Phogat was considered a potential Olympic medalist. But Ritu, whose older sisters Geeta and Babita both won gold medals in wrestling at the Commonwealth Games, decided to give up wrestling for mixed martial arts.
“I want to win the world championship belt for India,” she told Times of India. “This has never been done before and I want to be the first to win that for my country.”
The Haryana wrestler, who was scheduled to make her MMA debut in mid-November, has been following the sport on YouTube since 2012. “Even though I was doing well on the wrestling mat, somewhere at the back of my mind I wanted to do something different, something different from what my sisters were doing,” she said.
Compiled and partly written by Indian humorist MELVIN DURAI, author of the novel Bala Takes the Plunge.
[Comments? Contributions? Please email us at melvin@melvindurai.com. We welcome jokes, quotes, online clips, and more.]
Enjoyed reading Khabar magazine? Subscribe to Khabar and get a full digital copy of this Indian-American community magazine.
