Boxing: Celebrate Mary Kom’s success but expect Tokyo 2020 to be a very different challenge

MC Mary Kom, undoubtedly India’s most celebrated boxer, created history over the weekend when she bagged her sixth world championship crown. And even before the celebrations died down at the KD Jadhav stadium in New Delhi, the talk had already shifted to the possibility of the mother of three winning an Olympic gold two years from now.

The 35-year-old herself was slightly more restrained in her predictions about the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and her chances of winning a gold in Japan saying she would now start preparing for the Games in right earnest.

Since failing to qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympics, Mary Kom has not competed in the 51 kg category, instead focusing on the world championship. She even skipped the Asian Games in August this year to prepare for the worlds as the continental event did not have the 48kg category.

And the real question to be asked is whether two years would be enough for Mary to make the shift from 48 kg to 51 kg and win the gold in Tokyo.

The popular argument would be that Mary Kom had managed to win a medal in 2012 London Olympics, two years after winning the world championship in 48 kg category and there is no reason why she cannot do it again or even go a step further.

Also read: There’s something about Mary

No one can doubt Mary Kom’s ability to punch above her weight or her dedication which has seen the 35-year-old return twice after child birth to win major titles.

But one must not forget that Mary Kom isn’t getting any younger and cannot push her body in the same manner as she did in the two years prior to the 2012 Olympics, where she became India’s first woman boxer to clinch an Olympic medal.

Even then it was amply evident that the Indian was overpowered by the likes of Nicola Adams of United Kingdom and Ren Cancan of China, who were clearly stronger and had a longer reach.

Four years later, Mary could not even make the cut for the Rio Games despite winning the Asian Games gold in the same weight category in 2014 as Germany’s Azize Nimani made the most of her reach to tame the Indian in the 2016 world championship.

Standing at just 1.58m (5 ft 2 in), Mary Kom’s biggest strength in the boxing ring is her speed, agility and tactical awareness. Over the years, the 35-year-old has transformed from being an all-out aggressor to a counter-attacker who knows how to conserve energy and still maintain the upper hand over much younger opponents.

But implementing the same game plan in the 51 kg category where her opponents are 3 to 4 inches taller than her and have a bigger wingspan becomes difficult for Mary as they can keep her at a distance and attack every time she closed down to score points.

As in the past, there are more chances that top boxers in 54 kg category would look to reduce their weight and compete in 51 rather than go up to 57 as they have the advantage of strength while competing against lesser-weight opponents. Two-time Olympic champion Nicola Adams and China’s Ren Cancan did the same before the 2012 London Games and bagged the top two spots.

This means that Mary would have to be much quicker on her feet and pack a punch every time she gets close enough to land a blow or else she could be out-muscled on the counter.

In simpler words, Mary would have to push her aging body to the limit as she aims to get quicker and more aggressive to first qualify for her second Olympics and then maintain that same tempo for another year to win a medal in Tokyo.

She will have two chances to qualify for the 2020 Games at the next year’s world championship and then the continental qualification tournament and there is no doubt that if any one can achieve such a feat in Indian boxing is Mary Kom.

But one would do well to temper our expectations just yet and not start making predictions for 2020 based on her showing in the 48 kg category.

Same goes for Boxing Federation of India

While Mary Kom remains India’s best bet for Tokyo, the Boxing Federation of India is confident that India could have more than one woman qualifying for the Games based on the showing by the juniors and senior squads in the last two years.

The confidence also comes from the fact that two of the other three world championship medals — silver in 57 kg, and bronze in 69kg — came in events that have been added to the Tokyo roster.

But one only needs to look at the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games held earlier this year to know how fickle predicting in a sport like boxing can be. India failed to win a medal in any of these weight categories in the two major competitions.

There is a more possibility that the top boxers in the category from England, Australia and even China and Korea would have focussed more on the above competitions as the world championship in India wasn’t an Olympic qualifying event.

In fact, China did not field the Asian Games gold medallists in the world championship this year while a few other countries also left their big names back home to test the youngsters.

Having said that, there is no doubt that India had made considerable progress after four years of turmoil following the London Olympics when the national federation got suspended and Indian boxing was left completely in disarray.

But that does not mean that everything is hunky dory in Indian boxing now. The word in boxing circles is that the office bearers and important decision makers are not on the same page on various issues — something that contributed to the suspension of Boxing India, a body that replaced Indian Amateur Boxing Federation, within a year of taking over the reigns.

There are issues even within Boxing Federation of India (BFI) as there are two factions in Haryana, the state that has produced most international boxers in the last two decades. While the BFI has been supporting the newly-formed faction, the conflict is expected to take a long time to resolve.

Despite the efforts of High Performance Director Raffaele Bergamasco and a strong showing in youth tournaments in the past one year, the fact that there are not many boxers who can replace veterans like Mary Kom, L Sarita Devi and others in the squad also shows the lack of depth in Indian boxing.

Bergamasco has concentrated on changing the ‘traditional’ system of training, putting more emphasis on video analysis and improving technical ability of the boxers and his approach of concentrating on the younger boxers have seen the likes of Lovlina Borgohain and Simranjit Kaur punch above their weight in the world championship.

Ask the Italian in private what he thinks of India’s medal chances in 2020 and he would say that the current crop of youngsters would be ready to challenge for a medal in 2024 because that is the time he would need to work on the new generation.