Ritu prodigious amongst all the Phogats: Mahavir Phogat

Mahavir Singh Phogat’s daughter (from left) Sangeeta, Geeta, Ritu and Babita.

New Delhi, October 19: Ritu Phogat was not a part of the famous movie 'Dangal’. Her elder sister Gita Phogat is a gold winner at the Commonwealth Games and has also participated in two Olympics, while Babita and Vinesh have also been a part of the Olympics. But despite these achievements their father made a strong statement, stating that out of his six wrestler daughters, Ritu can be called prodigious.

Ritu, Mahavir’Ms third daughter, has been selected in the under-23 national women’s team for the forthcoming under-23 World Championship to be held in Poland. The 22-year old wrestler from Balali in Haryana already has phenomenal statistics in the junior level. She has won gold medals in two consecutive senior national championships. In her maiden appearance in Commonwealth Wrestling championship, Ritu had earned gold medal and in the beginning of this year she returned home with a bronze medal in the junior Asian championship.

Mahavir, famous all over the country after the movie on his biography was released, seemed ecstatic about his daughter. He said, “None of my other daughters had such tremendous performance in their junior level. Starting from Gita to Vinesh and Sangita everyone is extremely hard working. But Ritu has a different quality. Along with hard work Ritu is very intelligent and skilful. That is why, her unique speed and footwork always confuses the opponents. She has already developed a special trick. That is trapping her opponent between the legs and striking her on the mat. I am hugely optimistic that Ritu will bring more laurels for the country in her senior level.”

Ritu, whose weight category is 48 kg, began to start wrestling at the age of eight years. Having watched her elder sisters from childhood Ritu fell in love of wrestling. After reaching 10th standard in the school, she stopped studying and concentrated fully on wrestling.

Now the wrestler is dreaming of gold in the World Championship in Poland.