Google Doodle pays tribute to India’s first woman wrestler Hamida Banu.
| Photo Credit: Google Doodle
It was on today in 1954 when Hamida Banu defeated famed wrestler Baba Pahalwan in only one minute and 34 seconds. While Baba Pahalwan deemed it match to retire from skilled wrestling, Banu’s profession expanded to worldwide arenas and her victories reported throughout the globe.
Commemorating Banu’s victory and to pay tribute to her as “India’s first woman wrestler,” Google on May 4 put up a vibrant doodle on its homepage.
Born right into a household of wrestlers within the early 1900s close to Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, Banu grew up wrestling, successful over 300 competitions all through her profession that spanned the Forties and Nineteen Fifties at a time when ladies’s participation in athletics was strongly discouraged.
Banu, nonetheless, competed with males anyway, and issued an open problem to all male wrestlers, wagering her hand in marriage to whoever defeats her, Google wrote in a put up.
Banu’s success in worldwide matches gained her additional acclaim. One of these matches was the one in opposition to Russian woman wrestler Vera Chistilin, who she defeated in below two minutes.
Having made newspaper headlines for years, Banu got here to be often called the “Amazon of Aligarh”.
The bouts she gained, her weight loss plan, and her coaching routine have been broadly lined.
According to a BBC report, she weighed 108kg and was 5ft 3in tall.
“Her daily diet included 5.6 litres of milk, 2.8 litres of soup, 1.8 litres of fruit juice, a fowl, nearly 1kg of mutton and almonds, half a kilo of butter, 6 eggs, two big loaves of bread, and two plates of biryani,” the British media outlet reported.
Reuters famous that she slept for 9 hours and skilled for six.
A “trailblazer of her time,” Banu not solely fought fellow wrestlers however the norms of her instances.
“Hamida Banu was a trailblazer of her time, and her fearlessness is remembered throughout India and across the world. Outside of her sporting accomplishments, she will always be celebrated for staying true to herself,” Google’s be aware learn.
