Maha Singh Rao

Maha Singh Rao (born July 1, 1958) is a wrestler and wrestling coach from Chirawa, Rajasthan in India. In 2006, he was awarded the Dronacharya Award, the highest award of the land in the field of coaching of sports and athletics, by the government of India.

He was the fourth son out of a family of 6 children born to Bhana Ram Yadav and Mohri devi Yadav in a small village Ghardana Khurd in Jhunjhunu Rajasthan. After attaining his primary education in the same village he proceeded on to high school in Khetri and then graduated in Mathematics from Chirawa college, Chirawa in Jhunjhunu in 1980. His marriage was solemnised to Mrs Santosh on 15 June 1983.

Though he was lured to wrestling from the very childhood, his parents asked him to continue studies. Abiding by his parents advice he went on to get his Masters in Economics during 1981 to 1984 from Rajasthan University, Jaipur. In 1985 he moved to the nearby Chirawa town and settled there. Pressed by his interest in wrestling he simultaneously kept practicing lest he should lose touch with the sport. Meanwhile he obtained a diploma in wrestling from the national institute of sports in 1982-83. Until then he was a national level wrestler in the country representing the state of Rajasthan but later jumped on to training pehlwani.

After finishing his studies he joined the Sports Authority of India as a Wrestling Coach. He started training disciples in both freestyle wrestling and Indian style also known as pehlwani. His initial posting was in Guru Hanuman Akhara in New Delhi which was at that time being managed by Guru Hanuman, a legendary figure in the Indian style of wrestling. Maha Singh started training the budding pehlwans under the able guidance of Guru Hanuman. He was briefly transferred to Sri Ganganagar, Rajasthan but soon was sent back to Delhi where he is currently training wrestlers in the Guru Hanuman Akhara in New Delhi. After the demise of Guru Hanuman in May 1999 the whole responsibility of managing and training the young wrestlers came down on Maha singh.

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