Before Mary Kom defeated her opponents in the ring, she had to defeat the obstacles of poverty, social stigma, prejudice and gender bias. A true champion, this mother of three pummelled her way to the top, flattening every detractor who doubted her ability.
Born Mangte Chungneijang Mary Kom on November 24, 1982, in Churachandpur, Manipur to a farming family, Kom did her schooling from Loktak Christian Model High School and St. Xavier Catholic School, Moirang.
In school, Mary was more interested in athletics and football, but when a fellow Manipuri, Dingko Singh, won gold at the 1998 Bangkok Asian games, Mary developed an interest in boxing. She joined the Imphal Sports Academy and trained under Manipur state boxing coach M Narjit Singh, when she was 15.
She was careful to keep her interest in boxing a secret from all at home. It was considered a masculine sport and her parents believed that boxing would disfigure Mary’s face and spoil her prospects for marriage. It was only when she featured in a newspaper after she won the state boxing championship in 2000 that her family began to support her.
Mary is the only woman to win the World Amateur Boxing Championship six times and the only female boxer to have won a medal in each one of the first seven World Championships. She is the only boxer (male or female) to win eight World Championship medals.
Nicknamed the ‘Queen of Boxing’ and ‘Magnificent Mary’, she had been ranked World No. 1 by the International Boxing Association (Amateur) (AIBA). She became the first Indian female boxer to win a gold medal in the Asian Games in 2014 at Incheon, South Korea and is the first Indian female boxer to win gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. She is also the only boxer to become Asian Amateur Boxing Champion a record six times.
She became a member of the Rajya Sabha in April, 2016 and was appointed national observer for boxing by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports in March, 2017. She was awarded the Arjuna Award in 2003, the Padma Shri in 2006, the Padma Bhushan in 2013 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2020.
She wrote her autobiography titled ‘Unbreakable’ in 2013.
Picture Credit : Google
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