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Hailing from a humble background, Olympian Manoj Kumar's story is a rags to riches. There was a time when he had to think twice before buying a sports shoes, the family couldn't afford an individual bicycle for him and today he has got all the luxury, drives a Jeep compass sport utility vehicle.
Manoj represented India in two Olympics - 2012 London and 2016 Rio - and also won a gold in the 2010 Commonwealth Games and a bronze in 2018 Commonwealth Games. He was conferred with the Arjuna award in 2014.
His elder brother Rajesh Kumar, a former national-level boxer turned coach, has been instrumental in his boxing career. Rajesh is a guiding force behind his younger brothers Manoj and Mukesh, who is also an international boxer.
Manoj's father late Sher Singh was an ex-serviceman and was re-employed in the Haryana Sports Department as a sewadar/chowkidar - a Group 4 job. Because of Manoj's sporting achievements at the international-level, he was offered a job of Deputy Director, a Group-1 job, in the same department in which his father was a sewadar/chowkidar. But as he was already an officer on Special Duty (Sports) with Indian Railways, he decided to go with the Railways job.
Currently Manoj is pursuing a coaching diploma from the prestigious National Institute of Sports, Patiala, and is planning to join his elder brother Rajesh's initiative of producing future Olympians.
"When I was introduced to boxing, my elder brother showed me a picture of tennis star Leander Paes with his 1996 Atlanta Olympic medal and told me that this is our target. Over the years I was training for the Olympic medal, but somehow I couldn't win and end-up my career as an Olympian only. But now my aim is to help the young budding boxers to win an Olympic medal and by this I would be able to accomplish my unfulfilled dream of an Olympic medal," says Manoj, who hails from Rajound in Kaithal and currently settled in Kurukshetra.
The Manoj's family runs an Olympian Manoj Kumar Boxing Academy in Kurukshetra.