Vijender Singh Beniwal (born 29 October 1985) is an Indian boxer who won the bronze medal in the middleweight class at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the first Olympic medal for India in boxing. A year later he became the first Indian man to win a medal at the World Championships and was ranked first in the world in his weight. He turned professional in 2015 and won two regional titles.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Vijender Singh Beniwal |
| Born | 29 October 1985, Kaluwas, Bhiwani district, Haryana |
| Age | 40 |
| Sport | Boxing |
| Weight | Middleweight (amateur); super-middleweight (professional) |
| Olympics | 2004, 2008 (bronze), 2012 |
| Major medals | World Championships bronze (2009); Asian Games gold (2010); Commonwealth Games silver (2006, 2014) |
| Professional titles | WBO Asia Pacific and WBO Oriental super-middleweight |
| Awards | Arjuna Award (2006), Khel Ratna (2009), Padma Shri (2010) |
| Spouse | Archana Singh |
| Children | 2 |
Early Life
He was born in Kaluwas, a village five kilometres from the town of Bhiwani in Haryana. His father drove a bus for the state transport corporation and worked overtime to pay for his sons’ schooling and training; his mother kept the home. His elder brother, Manoj, a boxer, joined the Army on the strength of the sport, and Vijender followed him into the ring.
He trained at the Bhiwani Boxing Club under the coach Jagdish Singh, in a town that came to be called India’s little Cuba for the number of boxers it produced.
Amateur Career
He won national youth titles and qualified for the Athens Olympics in 2004, at eighteen, where he lost his first bout. He won silver at the Commonwealth Games and bronze at the Asian Games in 2006.
Beijing
At the Olympic Games of 2008 he won his first two bouts in the 75-kilogram class and, on 20 August, beat Carlos Góngora of Ecuador in the quarter-final to make sure of a medal. He lost the semi-final to a Cuban and took the bronze. Three Indian boxers had reached the quarter-finals; he was the one who went through. Boxing gyms across Haryana filled with boys.
After Beijing
- bronze at the World Championships in Milan in 2009, after which the international federation ranked him first in the world
- gold at the Asian Games in Guangzhou in 2010
- quarter-finalist at the London Olympics in 2012
- silver at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014
In 2013 his name was mentioned in connection with a drugs seizure in Punjab. He denied any involvement; tests carried out by the national anti-doping agency were negative, and no charge was brought.
Professional
In June 2015 he signed with a British promoter and gave up amateur boxing, which meant he could not go to the Rio Olympics. He won his first fight in Manchester that October.
In July 2016, in New Delhi, he beat Kerry Hope of Australia for the World Boxing Organization’s Asia Pacific super-middleweight title, before a large crowd. In 2017 he added the organisation’s Oriental title by beating a Chinese fighter in Mumbai. He won his first twelve professional fights, and lost for the first time in March 2021, on a ship moored off Goa.
Outside the Ring
Tall and good-looking, he became a celebrity after Beijing, modelling, appearing on television and acting in a Hindi film in 2014. He holds the rank of deputy superintendent in the Haryana police.
He stood for the Lok Sabha from South Delhi in 2019 as a candidate of the Congress and lost. He supported the farmers’ protests of 2020–21. In April 2024 he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party. In 2026 he was appointed to the Asian Boxing Council.
Honours
- Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna (2009)
- Padma Shri (2010)
Personal Life
He married Archana Singh, a software engineer, in 2011; they have two sons.
He stands with Mary Kom as one of the two boxers who made the sport popular in India, and after him Olympic medals came to Lovlina Borgohain.
Featured image: Vijender Singh at an event in Mumbai, April 2014. Photo by Bollywood Hungama, licensed under CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
