Olympics bronze medallist Mary Kom will return to action as she will lead the Indian boxers at the Boxam International Boxing tournament. The draw was made on Tuesday and Mary Kom and some of the other boxers have secured a direct entry to the quarterfinals of the tournament.
It has been tough several months for Mary Kom considering the difficulties with quarantine and lockdown and then she was suffering from dengue. But now she is looking to make a comeback to the ring and this will be her first outing since the Asian Olympics Qualifiers back in March last year where she also secured her ticket for the Tokyo Olympics. The 38-year old will go up against Giordina Sorrentino from Italy in the 51 kg category.
Among the male boxers, one of India’s medal hopefuls in the upcoming Olympics Amit Panghal was also drawn straight through to the quarterfinals. He will face Gabriel Escobar from Spain in the 52kg category. This tournament will act as a great preparatory camp for the Indian boxers as they will be able to assess the areas they need to improve on ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.
Of late, our training has been focused on speed and endurance. So, Boxam would be a nice place to judge how much my speed and endurance has improved,” Amit Panghal told in one of his conversations with the Olympic Channel.
Panghal is currently the World No.1 in his category and also being the Asian Games gold medallist and silver medallist at the World Championships. Therefore he holds the edge over the Spanish boxer in the quarterfinals.
2018 Commonwealth Games gold medallist boxer Vikas Krishnan Yadav will also be gearing up to fight against London 2012 Olympic bronze medallist Vincenzo Mangiacapre in the 69kg category.
Apart from these three nine other boxers have also made it to the quarterfinals directly and are only a win away from clinching a medal in this tournament. The nine boxers are: Ashish Kumar (75kg), Sumit Sangwan (81kg), Satish Kumar (91kg), Sanjeet (91kg), Jasmine, Manisha (both 57kg), Simranjit Kaur (60kg), Lovlina Borgohain (69kg) and Pooja Rani (75kg).
Among these boxers, Lovlina Borgohain, Pooja Rani, Ashish Kumar, Satish Kumar and Simranjit Kaur have already secured their places in the upcoming Olympics.
Boxam meet will also be the return of the 2018 Commonwealth silver medallist, Manish Kaushik. The 25-year-old will have to play an extra round in this tournament and will face Redouan Ammari Abdellaoui of Egypt in the 63kg category in the preliminary round.
