Harishchandra Birajdar Biography 
Olympian Wrestler Harishchandra Birajdar, often called as 'Lion of India' was a leading wrestler and wrestling coach from Latur, Maharashtra. He won 1970 British Commonwealth Games and has coached many famous wrestling players, who gave some outstanding contributions to National level and international level championships. Thus he is known as ‘the coach of National Games winners’. Kaka Pawar was a student of Birajdar. He was a recipient of the prestigious Dhyanchand Award in 2006. Hind Kesari in 1969, Shivchhatrapati Award in 1971, Rustum E Hind in 1972 and Dadoji Konddev Award for coaching in 1998 are other major honours received by him. He passed away in 2011. He was working as a coach in Gokul Vastad Talim in Pune then.
He was born on June 5, 1950 in Latur, Maharashtra. Ramling Mudgad Tal in Nilanga was his native place. His full name is Harishchandra Madhavrao Birajdar. Wrestling has been his family tradition. He received initial training in wrestling from his father, followed by Ganpatrao Khedkar from Kolhapur. He was introduced to the game by his father at the age of 8 and made his first public bout against his father when he was only 12. Now his son Sagar is also following his family tradition and has reached till National level junior championship.
In 1970 he received gold medal at British Commonwealth Games and the following year he was honoured with Shivchhatrapati Award. He came to limelight once again in the year 1977 when he beat the famous Satpal Singh, a leading player then. He retired from games two years later when diagnosed with kidney problems. Though he was active in wrestling till his late 20s, following a kidney problem his career came to a stop and he took up the role of a coach which made him popular.
Published: N/A
Updated: March 06, 2016
