Million dollar mummy

From her beginnings as a poor farmer’s daughter in a remote and troubled corner of India, ‘Magnificent Mary’ has fought her way up to become five-times world boxing champion.

The mother-of-two is now tipped as India’s best bet to win gold at London 2012 — a position few could envisage when she began learning how to box.

PUNE: The heat is searing in the gym when the power goes out. A physio hurries over with an emergency lamp and boxing star MC Mary Kom resumes training.

It’s hardly an ideal training session for an Olympic hopeful, but then glory never came easily for Kom.

From her beginnings as a poor farmer’s daughter in a remote and troubled corner of India, ‘Magnificent Mary’ has fought her way up to become five-times world boxing champion.

The mother-of-two is now tipped as her country’s best bet to win gold at London 2012.

“People were discouraging me, saying in India there are no women boxers. That was my first challenge. I took the challenge, I had to prove myself,” she told AFP in Pune, where she is currently training.

Kom — full name Mangte Chungneijang Merykom — was born 29 years ago in the northeastern state of Manipur, the eldest of four.

Growing up idolising Jackie Chan and her hero Muhammad Ali, Kom realised that her passion for sport could provide a path out of poverty.

“So I left studying and focused on training,” she said. “I did everything in athletics: running, discus, javelin, so many… I can do everything.”

When she heard that women’s boxing would be included in the Manipur state championships in 2000, she took to the ring and won the tournament just four months later.

She tried to keep her new activity quiet from her parents, but when her victory was revealed in the local newspaper, her sceptical father had a talk with her. “He was worried about me getting injured and that he couldn’t support me financially. But finally I convinced him,” she said.

Her determination paid off, propelling Kom to a string of international boxing titles, national honours and financial rewards.

Along the way she found time to set up a boxing academy, get married and have twin boys, who are now aged four. Her husband cares for them back home in Manipur when she trains.

Despite her talent, Kom said sponsorship were a long time coming which was upsetting.

“I don’t know if it’s because we don’t look like Indians,” she said of people from her home state, who live near the Myanmar border and whose facial features are often mistaken for Chinese or Southeast Asian.

Tiny Manipur is home to 2.7 million people and is one of India’s “Seven Sisters”, an isolated group of states where insurgent violence has for decades been part of daily life. Kom, who lost her father-in-law to rebel gunmen, has become a hero and a rare ray of hope in Manipur, where she set up her academy to give underprivileged girls and boys the chance to follow her into the ring.

“The youngsters came to me and asked for training and I couldn’t say no,” she said. “Most of them are very poor.”

She now hopes to make her home state even prouder.

To compete at the London Games, where women’s boxing is a full Olympic medal event for the first time, Kom must qualify at the world championships in China starting on May 9.

The 157 centimetre (5 feet 2 inches) fighter faces the daunting prospect of taller opponents after switching from the 48kg to the 51kg weight category, the lightest of three groupings to be contested in London.

In preparation, she is sparring only with taller, heavier males.

Her British coach Charles Atkinson, who trained a succession of Thai world champion boxers,is highly impressed by Kom.

Kom is Atkinson’s first female trainee after decades in the boxing business. “If anyone beats her they’ll have to fight out of their skin,” he said. “To me she’s a fighter, with a fighting heart greater than some guys I have handled.”

Tags: MC Mary Kom, World boxing champion

Category: Sport, Sports News