From bulldozing opponents to out-thinking them: How Mary Kom has tried to stay on top of her game

At the end of the a grueling two-hour training session on one of smoggy Delhi evenings, boxers of the Indian team set to participate in the upcoming AIBA World Championships, head back to their hostel. They are tired, shoulders slumping down and they all walk back to the hostel in their sweaty kits and sweatshirts.

All but Mary Kom. The former world champion is still in the ring, training.

While the other girls are done with the evening session, Mary is with her coach Chote Lal Yadav, busy with the pad work after three rounds of sparring. “Yeh. Aise theek hai,” Chote says, as Mary continues to duck and counter while continuously moving around the floor.

To cool off, Mary does the stretching inside the ring but in a more relaxable t-shirt and sports lower. After half-an-hour, she sits at the side of the ring and cracks jokes with the few left in the hall. Energy brimming even after all those hard yards inside the ring.

(Also read: Profiles of the Indian squad for the world championship)

“In India we say that with age an athlete is down and one should retire but that is not the case. She is still here, training. Age is nothing. If you are disciplined and diet is under control there is no one stopping you. It only means maturity,” Chote says.

He is talking about the 35-year-old boxer who is a five-time world champion and is now eyeing another when the Worlds begin on Thursday in Delhi.

Her last title came back in 2010, the only in the 48 kg category, and at 35 she isn’t the runaway favourite to clinch the gold as she was eight years ago in USA.

But former India coach Anoop Kumar, who was ringside during all her five titles, warns against ruling her out of medal contention. “Age factor is nothing for her. She is a boxer with comebacks and she has done it again and again. She has every ability as a boxer even now. And after so much hard work, why should not she win.”

The London Olympic bronze medallist has proved her mettle and returned to the ring in style time and again. After winning the bronze medal at the 2010 Asian Games, she improved to gold medal in 2014 at Incheon. This year she became the first Indian woman to win a gold at the Commonwealth Games and then decided to skip the Asian Games in Jakarta to prepare for the world championship.

Improved ring craft

And despite her long wait for a sixth world title, the acclaimed boxer is once again India’s biggest hope for a medal.

“Have you heard of ring craft? That’s what she has learned in all these years. She is experienced and her tactics and techniques have improved so much over the years. She is a boxer with so much confidence and this is not new. She was always so confident. Now she has increased it,” Bhaskar Bhatt, former coach with the Indian team, says.

It is the same confidence Mary showed when she won her first world title back in 2001 as a 17-year-old. She went on to win four more in consecutive years.

But Anoop regards the the first title as her best. “She was up against a boxer from North Korea and I was so nervous. She got two standing counts and I thought ‘there goes the gold’. Two standing counts are depressing for a boxer. But she came back and won that bout. As a 17-year-old she was so strong. Imagine after all these years how strong she is,” he recalls.

A young Mary in action in the 46kg weight category was like watching a person fly. Lightweight boxers are expected to. With rage in her eyes, she would punish her opponents for every mistake they made. Year after year, she racked up world titles, even after giving birth to twin boys.

Back then, she was a young and aggressive boxer who would try hitting her opponent hard and winning every medal that was on offer. “She was very powerful in the ring. There was speed in everything she did. The opponents were trying to avoid a punch but that was impossible. She never used to stop. Aggression was her strength.” Bhatt says.

Even by Mary’s admission, she used to be more aggressive boxer than she is now. But that also means that she saves her energy in the ring. “When I was younger, it was all boom boom boom. I don’t do that now because I need to have the energy to play three rounds, it is not about just one round, so accordingly we have to plan, how much capacity I have and unnecessarily punching is also wasting energy,” she says.

Her training schedule also focuses on the same. Instead of long, tiring sparring sessions, Mary is subjected to short, quick session of counter punching. “We have tried improving her counter punching especially to dodge a punch and then hit the opponent. Rarely I have seen that in India but Mary did that well in Poland tournament this year” Chote says.

From the aggressor to counter-puncher

The Army subedar is referring to the final bout of the 48kg category against Kazakhstan’s Aigerim Kassanayeva at the Silesian Open in Poland. It was Mary’s third gold of the year after the India Open and Gold Coast CWG. The bout was a counter-punching masterclass from her and she went all out in the final three minutes to win the bout by unanimous decision.

While a lot has changed in her technique over the years, one thing has remained constant over the years — her self confidence.

Bhatt, who trained Mary from 2008 to 2013, says that Mary’s maturity helps her learn things quickly. “She has matured so much that now she isn’t excited about bouts or opponents. Her movements inside the ring are a result of that. She has maintained her fitness and if the body continues to coordinates in these championships, she will win.”

While fitness is no doubt important, Chote says her mind needs to be above her body to excel at the worlds. “Fitness is one of the things that she needs to go her way. But she needs to be clever. Best boxers win because they are clever and she like a fox. For example, everyone watches videos but she doesn’t care. She only watches for 30 seconds or one minute and she is done,” he says.

Mobiles are in excess inside the boxing hall at IG Stadium. There are boxers making videos of their teammates or the opponents while sparring. Most competitors rely on the technology to study their opponent before a bout, and this is the world championships.

Mary, however, is unfazed by all this. “Let them take videos, let them record whatever they want,” she says and laughs. “Every competition is a challenge for us because in every competition we have fought different boxers, they keep changing,” she says.

She has also sparred with her opponents from different countries. While she is focused on her training, her coaches have studied the opponents. Chote says apart from a couple of boxers, Mary’s category is stacked with world-class boxers.

Mary, again, is not concerned. “It was great sparring with foreign boxers for seven days, that sort of helped. While sparring I found that there is a new set of boxers who are quite fast, but my experience counts and I will try to use that to my advantage against them. The past boxers are more or less the same, I know them”.

But there is no denying the fact that women’s boxing has come a long way and so has Mary.

From a young, aggressive boxer with rage inside the ring, she has now taken the role of a senior boxer — calmer, mature and waiting for the opponent to make a mistake.

With more exposure to boxers around the world, the level of boxing has seen significant rise and Mary knows that fighting the new boxers will be a challenge. “I fought the new boxers in Poland which was a challenge for me. I gave a good fight there. Boxers have got the exposure, so they have got more experience, so maybe because of the training program, maybe they have a good coach, that have all made them improve a lot. Even the boxers are clever and pick things quickly,” says the mother of three.

For Mary, terming a boxer clever is a high-regard, perhaps the highest. But she is confident, like all her previous world championships. “I will do what I am supposed to in the ring.”