Mary Kom deserves decent farewell from Olympics
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: July 31, 2021 -
FOR an extraordinary individual like MC Mary Kom, whose sporting career has spanned over 20 years and has contributed immensely towards popularising and developing women's boxing, seeing her shot at another Olympics medal ending in controversy at the Tokyo Games on Thursday would be the last thing on her mind as well as in the mind of millions of fans across the world.
Apart from being a boxer and incumbent Member of the Rajya Sabha, she is also a mother of four kids but her achievements inside the boxing ring for over two decades proved her steely resolve to outsmart her opponents, including bulkier and taller ones in the Olympics which have only three weight classes in the women's category.
She is also the only female player to win the World Amateur Boxing Championship six times, only female boxer to have won a medal in each one of the first seven World Championships and holds the enviable record of winning at-least one medal in the Asian and Commonwealth championships or Games.
Starting her boxing career as a light-flyweight competitor, Mary Kom, nicknamed 'Magnificent Mary' by the International Amateur Boxing Association, was the only Indian female boxer to have qualified for the London Olympics in 2012, competed in the higher flyweight (51 kg) category and won a bronze medal.
With many other firsts in her illustrious career, Mary's fearless charges in the ring against her Colombian opponent in the last-16 stage of the latest competition made it clear how desperate she was to add a gold medal from the Tokyo Games to her huge collection.
However, her pursuit ended in anti-climax as she went down in a fiercely-fought showdown despite winning two of the three rounds.
Her post-bout comments, "I don't know what happened, I thought in the first round, we were both trying to figure out our strategies and I won the next two", not only summed up the frustration of the champion pugilist over missing the yellow metal but also the contentious point scoring system that has been dogging boxing at all levels.
Even if verdict of the judges remains unchanged, the fact that Mary won two of the rounds but exited the ring as the loser will not be fathomable to her fans.
The pride of Manipur has every right to question the scoring system as she had the better outing in two of the three rounds in what could be her last Olympics, where the competitors' age is restricted to 40 years as on date.
Despite her unceremonious exit from the Olympics, Mary Kom's feats would be forever cherished by the people of Manipur.
For the record, after her sixth world title in 2018, the government of Manipur conferred on her the title "Meethoi Leima" in a felicitation ceremony held in December, 2018.
At the same function, the stretch of road leading to the National Games village, where she has a government accommodation, was named as MC Mary Kom Road, followed by the government increasing the cash reward from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 75 lakh after she won the bronze medal at the London Olympics, promoting her to the rank of Superintendent of Police (Sports), and allotting 2 acres of land at Langol area for the Mary Kom Boxing Academy, to name a few of the government initiatives to honour her achievements and bringing laurels to the state and country.
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