Phogat sisters

"Phogat" redirects here. For the village in Haryana, see Phogat, Charkhi Dadri.

Phogat sisters
Phogat family in 2017
Current regionCharki Dadri, Haryana, India
Place of originHaryana, India
Members
Connected membersMahavir Singh Phogat (father)
TraditionsHindu

The Phogat sisters are six sisters from Haryana, India, all of whom are wrestlers. In order of their birth, they are Geeta, Babita, Priyanka, Ritu, Vinesh, and Sangeeta.[1] Geeta, Babita, Ritu, and Sangeeta are daughters of former wrestler and coach Mahavir Singh Phogat. Priyanka and Vinesh were brought up by Mahavir after their father (and Mahavir's younger brother), Rajpal Phogat, died when they were young.[2] Mahavir trained all six of them in wrestling in their home village of Balali in Bhiwani district.[3][4][5]

Three of the Phogat sisters, Geeta, Babita, and Vinesh, are gold medalists in different weight categories at the Commonwealth Games, while Priyanka has won a silver medal at the Asian Championships. Ritu is a National Championships gold medalist and Sangita has won medals at age-level international championships.[6][7]

The success of the Phogat sisters has attracted substantial media attention, particularly in light of prevalent social issues in Haryana such as gender inequality, female foeticide, and child marriage.[8][9] Chandgi Ram's daughters, Sonika and Deepika, sowed the seeds of encouraging girls to take up women's wrestling in the 1990s; his protege Mahavir Phogat's daughters revolutionised wrestling, and then Sakshi Malik won an Olympic medal, which led to a big change in the mentality towards women wrestling.[10]

  1. ^ Rajpal, Hina (19 August 2015). "Stories Of Sisterhood: The Phogat Sisters". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  2. ^ Sengupta, Rudraneil (18 August 2016). "The Story Of These Six Wrestler Sisters From Haryana Is What You Should Read Today". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  3. ^ Gupta, Gargi (10 August 2014). "Meet the medal winning Phogat sisters". DNA India. Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  4. ^ Sengupta, Rudraneil (20 September 2014). "Gender: Six ways to break the shackles". Livemint. Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  5. ^ Duggal, Saurabh (16 December 2015). "Wrestling league's power puff girls". Hindustan Times Mumbai. Retrieved 18 August 2016 – via PressReader.
  6. ^ Basu, Suromitro (16 May 2016). "An ode to sisterhood: Yet another Phogat sets the benchmark for Indian women's wrestling". Yahoo!. Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  7. ^ Kanthwal, Gaurav (31 July 2010). "But hey, this is family..." The Times of India. Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  8. ^ Udas, Sumnima (28 July 2016). "The Indian female wrestlers breaking taboos and making history". CNN.com. Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  9. ^ Briggs, Simon (26 July 2011). "London 2012 Olympics: Phogat sisters are wrestling superstars in northern India". The Telegraph. Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  10. ^ Women’s wrestling in India: Why Navjot Kaur’s gold medal is a watershed moment, Livemint, 31 March 2018.