3 bronze in pockets, Indians look for a gold rush

The news at the World Women’s Boxing Championships keeps getting better with each passing day. Wednesday’s semi-finals saw as many as five Indian pugilists putting themselves in line for silver each, if not the gold medals.

The news at the World Women’s Boxing Championships keeps getting better with each passing day. Wednesday’s semi-finals saw as many as five Indian pugilists putting themselves in line for silver each, if not the gold medals.

However, Chhotu Laura (50kg), Renu (80kg) and Aruna Mishra’s (66kg) have to be satisfied with the bronze.

MC Mary Kom (46kg), Lekha KC (75kg), N Usha (57kg), Jenny RL (63kg) and L Sarita Devi (52kg), though, will live their dreams as well as they entered the finals. “I am overwhelmed, I did not think

I would get this far. I worked very hard and prayed a lot; I hope I can finish off well too,” said Jenny, after her 25-19 win over Canada’s Katie Dunn.

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World champion Mary Kom did not sweat much during her bout against Jong Ok of DPR Korea. “Today I boxed well. I did not expect this to be easy as the North Koreans have been very good,” she said after her 20-8 victory. “Hearing the people cheer also motivated me even more,” she adds.

The activity in the stands attracted its fair share of attention too. The Turkish team, not happy at being out-shouted by the home supporters decided to hijack the Indian chants, and soon enough shouts of “Turkiye jeetega” could be heard in time to the Indian voices during Chhotu’s bout against Hasibe Erkoc. Noting this down as a successful ploy, the other teams decided to try their hand at it as well, to try and counter the home crowd. A substantial number of foreigners would have learnt their first word in Hindi today.

Sarita Devi won her 52 kg bout after the referee declared her the winner on the basis of outclassing her opponent – Egypt’s Samiha Ali Hassan. But this decision did not please the Egyptian coach, Said el Sayed, “The referee was wrong in stopping play, Samiha was ready to fight on. This is a semi-final, and whoever has made it to this point has done so on the basis of their ability. The bout should have continued,” he said. “But I can’t do anything about it now. I am happy we got a bronze,” he smiled in resignation.

“The referee has to stop play when he sees the difference in performance. The score was 20-7 at the time and another two points it would have been a case of outscoring anyway. Have you ever seen someone trailing by 14 points and making a miraculous recovery?” was coach Chandra’s take on the issue. At the end of the day’s proceedings, however, the Indian squad had plenty to smile about. “We will definitely win three gold medals – minimum! And we can also win the team championship,” was coach Anoop Kumar’s bold declaration on the eve of Thursday’s finals.