Mary Kom hid her boxing from her father until a newspaper photo gave her away
A farmer's daughter from rural Manipur kept her new sport secret, because her father, once a wrestler himself, feared boxing would ruin her face and her marriage prospects. Then she won the state championship and her picture ran in the paper. That girl, Mary Kom, went on to win six world titles.
She was born in 1982 in a village in Churachandpur district, the eldest child of tenant farmers who worked shifting hillside fields. At school she threw the javelin and ran the 400 metres. What changed her direction was a fellow Manipuri, Dingko Singh, coming home with Asian Games gold in 1998, a win that sent many local youngsters into boxing gyms. She switched sports in 2000 and picked up the basics fast; her first coach remembered an iron-willed, hard-working girl. Her father took three years to come round, but he did.
Marriage and the birth of twins in 2007 brought a short break, after which she returned and kept winning world championships. Rule changes forced her to keep shifting weight. When the world body dropped the lightest women's classes she moved up to 51 kilograms, a division she had to fight in for the 2012 London Games, the first to include women's boxing at all. She was the only Indian woman to qualify, won the third women's Olympic bout ever staged, and took bronze after losing her semi-final to Britain's Nicola Adams.
More firsts followed: Asian Games gold in Incheon in 2014, then Commonwealth gold in 2018, the first year her light-flyweight category was even on the programme. That November, in New Delhi, she became the first woman to take six world amateur titles. She remains the only boxer, male or female, with eight world championship medals.
Her Tokyo Olympics ended in confusion. Hearing an announcer pause after the words split decision, she raised her fist in celebration, only to learn her Colombian opponent had been given the bout. She had beaten her twice before and said she simply could not believe it.
Source: Mary Kom
