Kaur Singh
Kaur Singh | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Born | 1948/1949 Khanal Khurd, Sangrur, East Punjab, India | ||||||||||||||||||||
Died | (aged 74) Kurukshetra, Haryana, India | ||||||||||||||||||||
Nationality | Indian | ||||||||||||||||||||
Statistics | |||||||||||||||||||||
Weight(s) | Heavyweight | ||||||||||||||||||||
Stance | Orthodox | ||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Kaur Singh (Punjabi: ਕੌਰ ਸਿੰਘ; 1948/1949 – 27 April 2023) was an Indian heavyweight champion boxer from Punjab. Singh won three gold medals for senior national boxing championship, Asian Boxing Championship and Asian Games.[1][2][3]
Early life
Singh was born in a Jat Sikh Family of village Khanal Khurd in Sangrur, Punjab's Malwa region. He was a small-time farmer before joining the Indian army in 1973 as havildar at the age of 23 where he participated in the India-Pakistan war; and was awarded Sena Medal for his bravery and received the Vishisht Sewa Medal in 1988.[4]
Boxing career
In 1979, Singh won a gold medal at the senior national boxing championship and remained the holder of the gold medal for four years till 1983.[5]
In 1980, Singh won a gold medal at the Asian Boxing Championship in Mumbai.[6]
In 1982, Singh won a gold medal at the heavyweight category Asian Games held at New Delhi, in the same year he got the Arjuna Award by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports.[7][8]
In 1983, the Government of India awarded Singh with the Padma Shri award for outstanding contribution to Indian sports.[9]
Singh retired from boxing career in 1984 after participating and representing India in the Los Angeles Olympics where he won two bouts, but was defeated in the third match.[citation needed]
Fighting against Muhammad Ali
On 27 January 1980, Singh fought at Delhi's National Stadium against Muhammad Ali in an exhibition match of four-rounds. "Us de mukke bahut hi dumdar si (His punches had great power). I clearly remember that jab, his famous jab. It seemed to come out of nowhere. He used his right hand to block my punches, and his counterpunch to hit me. His speed was amazing; not once during those four rounds did the speed drop. He was shorter than me but his ring craft and movement took him out of my reach," said Singh.[10]
Death
Singh died on 27 April 2023, at the age of 74.[11]
Legacy
A biopic film of Singh, Padma Shri Kaur Singh, was slated to release in 2020, with producer Karam Batth playing Singh. The film highlighted apathy of governments in releasing the prize money they announced.[12][13][14] Film release was delayed due to COVID-19 and then due to clash with other film releases in 2022. Karam Batth in an interview said "It was supposed to release on July 8 but the makers of Shareek 2 shifted its release date to the same Friday. I was fine with it as both the films are quite different. But then team Sohreyan Da Pind Aa Gaya also announced its release date on the same day, which made us postpone ours to July 22."[15]
Exhibition boxing record
1 fight | 0 wins | 0 losses |
---|---|---|
Non-scored | 1 |
No. | Result | Record | Opponent | Type | Round, time | Date | Location | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | — | 0–0 (1) | Muhammad Ali | — | 4 | 27 Jan 1980 | National Stadium, New Delhi, India | Non-scored bout |
References
- ^ "Here's the unheard story of Kaur Singh, the farmer from Punjab who fought Muhammad Ali". Business Insider.
- ^ "How the Army Rushed to the Rescue of a Forgotten Boxing Hero - Twice!". The Better India. 20 December 2017.
- ^ "Forgotten Boxing hero Kaur Singh raising loan from money lenders for medical treatment". India Today.
- ^ "Arjuna Award". The Times of India.
- ^ "कभी बॉक्सर मोहम्मद अली से किया था मुकाबला, अब जी रहे ऐसे बदहाली की जिंदगी". Dainik Bhaskar (in Hindi). 13 December 2017.
- ^ "Kaur Singh, a gold medal in the Asian Boxing Championship in 1980". The Tribune (Chandigarh).
- ^ "The untold story of Kaur Singh – A forgotten Indian boxer who fought Muhammad Ali". punjabtoday.in.
- ^ "Heavyweight boxing champ Kaur Singh recalls fight with Zorawar Muhammed Ali". SBS PopAsia.
- ^ "Boxer Kaur Singh: The forgotten hero who fought Muhammad Ali". The Bridge. 25 December 2017.
- ^ "Indian boxer recalls fight with 'shahenshah'". The Indian Express. 22 July 2016.
- ^ Boxing champion Kaur Singh passes away after multiple health problems
- ^ "Padma Shri Kaur Singh's Biopic On Cards; He Was The Only Indian Boxer To Fight Muhammad Ali". KoiMoi.
- ^ "Biopic of only Indian boxer who fought Muhammad Ali in the pipeline". Zee News.
- ^ "Now, film on Indian boxer who faced Ali". Mumbai Mirror.
- ^ Service, Tribune News. "Karam Batth brings out the story of Padma Shri Kaur Singh, the legendary Punjabi boxer". Tribuneindia News Service. Retrieved 9 July 2022.
- v
- t
- e
- Balbir Singh Sr. (1957)
- K. D. Singh (1958)
- Mihir Sen (1959)
- Milkha Singh (1959)
- Vijay Hazare (1960)
- Jasu Patel (1960)
- Arati Saha (1960)
- Nari Contractor (1962)
- Sonam Gyatso (1962)
- Ramanathan Krishnan (1962)
- Gostha Pal (1962)
- Polly Umrigar (1962)
- Syed Mushtaq Ali (1963)
- M. J. Gopalan (1964)
- Nawang Gombu (1964)
- Charanjit Singh (1964)
- H. P. S. Ahluwalia (1965)
- Avtar Singh Cheema (1965)
- D. B. Deodhar (1965)
- Phu Dorjee (1965)
- Wilson Jones (1965)
- Verghese Kurien (1965)
- Harish Chandra Singh Rawat (1965)
- Chandra Prakash Vohra (1965)
- Sonam Wangyal (1965)
- Kishan Lal (1966)
- Narendra Kumar (1965)
- Shankar Lakshman (1967)
- Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi (1967)
- Gurdial Singh (1967)
- Prithipal Singh (1967)
- Chandu Borde (1969)
- Bishan Singh Bedi (1970)
- Moin-ul-Haq (1970)
- E. A. S. Prasanna (1970)
- Leslie Claudius (1971)
- Sailen Manna (1971)
- Ghaus Mohammad (1971)
- Chandgi Ram (1971)
- Kamaljeet Sandhu (1971)
- Gundappa Viswanath (1971)
- Harsh Vardhan Bahuguna (1972)
- B. S. Chandrasekhar (1972)
- Ajit Wadekar (1972)
- Farokh Engineer (1973)
- Pankaj Roy (1975)
- Roshan Lal Anand (1976)
- Meena Shah (1977)
- Vasudevan Baskaran (1981)
- Syed Kirmani (1982)
- Kapil Dev (1982)
- Prakash Padukone (1982)
- Vijay Amritraj (1983)
- Bahadur Singh Chauhan (1983)
- Guru Hanuman (1983)
- Eliza Nelson (1983)
- Chand Ram (1983)
- Kaur Singh (1983)
- Raghubir Singh (1983)
- Satpal Singh (1983)
- M. D. Valsamma (1983)
- Geeta Zutshi (1983)
- Charles Borromeo (1984)
- Phu Dorjee (1984)
- Chuni Goswami (1984)
- D. K. Khullar (1984)
- Bachendri Pal (1984)
- Omprakesh Agrawal (1985)
- P. T. Usha (1985)
- Anupama Gokhale (1986)
- Swaroop Kishen (1986)
- Geet Sethi (1986)
- Mohammad Shahid (1986)
- Bhagyashree Thipsay (1987)
- Dilip Vengsarkar (1987)
- Viswanathan Anand (1988)
- Mohammad Azharuddin (1988)
- Chandraprabha Aitwal (1990)
- P. K. Banerjee (1990)
- Premchand Degra (1990)
- Gulshan Rai (1990)
- Jaman Lal Sharma (1990)
- Taranath Narayan Shenoy (1990)
- Selma D'Silva (1991)
- Aspy Adajania (1992)
- Ajit Pal Singh (1992)
- Sriram Singh (1992)
- Hakam Singh (1992)
- Shiny Abraham (1998)
- Ramesh Krishnan (1998)
- Lila Ram (1998)
- Pargat Singh (1998)
- Karnam Malleswari (1999)
- Sachin Tendulkar (1999)
- Santosh Yadav (2000)
- Mahesh Bhupathi (2001)
- Malathi Krishnamurthy Holla (2001)
- Bhuvneshwari Kumari (2001)
- Leander Paes (2001)
- Dhanraj Pillay (2001)
- Sunita Rani (2001)
- Diana Edulji (2002)
- Jaspal Rana (2002)
- Mukesh Kumar (2003)
- Gopal Purushottam Phadke (2003)
- Kanhaya Lal Pokhriyal (2003)
- Jyotirmoyee Sikdar (2003)
- Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan (2003)
- K. M. Beenamol (2004)
- Gurmayum Anita Devi (2004)
- Rahul Dravid (2004)
- Sourav Ganguly (2004)
- Anju Bobby George (2004)
- S. P. Nimbalkar (2004)
- Dilip Tirkey (2004)
- Pullela Gopichand (2005)
- Anil Kumble (2005)
- Gurbachan Singh Randhawa (2005)
- Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (2005)
- Rachel Thomas (2005)
- Madhumita Bisht (2006)
- Mohan Singh Gunjyal (2006)
- Mary Kom (2006)
- Sania Mirza (2006)
- Bahadur Singh Sagoo (2006)
- Koneru Humpy (2007)
- Jeev Milkha Singh (2007)
- Bhaichung Bhutia (2008)
- Bula Choudhury (2008)
- Pankaj Advani (2009)
- MS Dhoni (2009)
- Balbir Singh Kullar (2009)
- Harbhajan Singh (2009)
- Ramakant Achrekar (2010)
- Narain Karthikeyan (2010)
- Saina Nehwal (2010)
- Virender Sehwag (2010)
- Vijender Singh (2010)
- Ignace Tirkey (2010)
- Kunjarani Devi (2011)
- Sushil Kumar (2011)
- VVS Laxman (2011)
- Shital Mahajan (2011)
- Gagan Narang (2011)
- Krishna Poonia (2011)
- Harbhajan Singh (mountaineer) (2011)
- S. M. Arif (2012)
- Ravi Chaturvedi (2012)
- Jhulan Goswami (2012)
- Zafar Iqbal (field hockey) (2012)
- Devendra Jhajharia (2012)
- Limba Ram (2012)
- Prabhakar Vaidya (2012)
- Premlata Agrawal (2013)
- Yogeshwar Dutt (2013)
- Vijay Kumar (2013)
- Girisha Nagarajegowda (2013)
- Dingko Singh (2013)
- Bajrang Lal Takhar (2013)
- Anjum Chopra (2014)
- Sunil Dabas (2014)
- Love Raj Singh Dharmshaktu (2014)
- Dipika Pallikal (2014)
- H. Boniface Prabhu (2014)
- Yuvraj Singh (2014)
- Mamta Sodha (2014)
- Saba Anjum Karim (2015)
- Mithali Raj (2015)
- P. V. Sindhu (2015)
- Sardara Singh (2015)
- Arunima Sinha (2015)
- Sushil Doshi (2016)
- Deepika Kumari (2016)
- Vikas Gowda (2017)
- Dipa Karmakar (2017)
- Virat Kohli (2017)
- Deepa Malik (2017)
- Sakshi Malik (2017)
- Shekhar Naik (2017)
- P. R. Sreejesh (2017)
- Mariyappan Thangavelu (2017)
- Saikhom Mirabai Chanu (2018)
- Somdev Devvarman (2018)
- Murlikant Petkar (2018)
- Srikanth Kidambi (2018)
- Sunil Chhetri (2019)
- Harika Dronavalli (2019)
- Gautam Gambhir (2019)
- Sharath Kamal (2019)
- Bombayla Devi Laishram (2019)
- Bajrang Punia (2019)
- Prashanti Singh (2019)
- Ajay Thakur (2019)
- Oinam Bembem Devi (2020)
- M. P. Ganesh (2020)
- Zaheer Khan (2020)
- Jitu Rai (2020)
- Tarundeep Rai (2020)
- Rani Rampal (2020)
- Anitha Pauldurai (2021)
- Anshu Jamsenpa (2021)
- Mouma Das (2021)
- Sudha Singh (2021)
- Virender Singh (2021)
- K. Y. Venkatesh (2021)
- Sumit Antil (2022)
- Pramod Bhagat (2022)
- Neeraj Chopra (2022)
- Sankaranarayana Menon (2022)
- Faisal Ali Dar (2022)
- Vandana Katariya (2022)
- Avani Lekhara (2022)
- Brahmanand Sankhwalkar (2022)
- S. R. D. Prasad (2023)
- K. Shanathoiba Sharma (2023)
- Gurcharan Singh (2023)
- Joshna Chinappa (2024)
- Rohan Bopanna (2024)
- Purnima Mahato (2024)
- Harbinder Singh (2024)
- Satendra Singh Lohiya (2024)
- Gaurav Khanna (2024)
- Uday Vishwanath Deshpande (2024)