Sangeeta Phogat
is an Indian wrestler who competes in the 59kg freestyle category. She is the
daughter of famed wrestling coach Mahavir Singh Phogat, who has bred a family Olympians
and international medal winning wrestlers.

Born on
March 5, 1998 in Balali, Haryana, Sangeeta is the youngest of the Phogat
sisters, with her elder sisters Geeta, Babita and Ritu all either Olympians or
World Champions in wrestling. Her siblings also have a total of nine Asian
championship medals and all of them are national champions. Ritu is currently
an MMA fighter currently signed with One Championship.

Sangeeta,
23, has won a silver medal at the national championships and has a long way to
go to emulate her sisters and keep the family tradition alive. Sangita also has
a younger brother, Dushyant, and two cousin sisters – Vinesh and Priyanka
Phogat.

Geeta won
India its first wrestling gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in 2010, with Vinesh
clinching gold at the 2014 and 2018 Games. Babita has also won three golds in
the 55kg category. Priyanka is a silver medalist at the 2018 Asian Wrestling
Championships in Bangkok. Ritu is a national champion.

On November
25, 2020, Sangeeta married wrestler Bajrang Punia. The two had initially planned
to tie the knot after the conclusion of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but the
pandemic delayed the Games by a year.

Also Read | How many medals has Indian wrestler Bajrang Punia won?

At the
wedding, the two took eight ‘pheras’ instead of seven, with the extra one
dedicated to the girl child as they honoured the government’s ‘Beti Bachao Beti
Padhao’ campaign.

Interestingly,
all the Phogat sisters, except for Ritu, are married to fellow wrestlers. Geeta
is married to wrestler Pawan Kumar, while Babita’s husband is grappler Vivek
Suhag, and Vinesh is married to Somvir Rathee.

Sangeeta
first met Bajrang at a wrester’s training camp in Sonepat, Haryana and were
married at a quiet ceremony at the Phogat hometown of Balali in Haryana.

At the ongoing Tokyo Olympics, Bajrang stormed into the semi-finals of the 65kg freestyle event on Friday, defeating Kyrgyzstan’s Ernazar Akmataliev and Iran’s Morteza Ghiasi Cheka in the pre-quarters and the quarterfinals respectively. 

He will now face Azerbaijan’s Haji Aliev for a place in the gold medal bout.