Vinesh Phogat celebrates after winning the Gold medal in women's freestyle 50 kg wrestling at the Asian Games ... Read More

NEW DELHI: It was a memorable 24th birthday for Vinesh Phogat . The golden girl of Indian wrestling got engaged to long-time boyfriend Somvir Rathi on Saturday upon her return from Jakarta , where she became the first Indian woman to win a wrestling gold at the Asian Games.

And she chose a rather unusual venue for the occasion. Vinesh and Somvir — a Greco-Roman wrestler — exchanged rings outside the arrival gates of IGI airport in the presence of their families and friends. The cakecutting ceremony also took place at the airport.

Vinesh was recently at the centre of a controversial news report which linked her romantically to star javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra . Both had vehemently denied any such hook-up and criticised the report on their respective social media accounts.

Vinesh clarified that the surprise engagement wasn’t an outcome of the controversy.

“No, it was nothing like that. For me, that article involving Neeraj didn’t exist. Somvir and I are friends for 7-8 years and the whole country knows about our relationship,” Vinesh told TOI.

Read this story in Bengali

