India’s most decorated boxer Mary Kom won her first gold medal on her debut at Gold Coast Commonwealth Games (CWG) 2018. Mary created history by becoming the first Indian woman boxer to win gold in the Commonwealth Games. Indian boxers got 9 medals in total — 3 gold, 3 silver and 3 bronze. The 35-year-old addressed the media during their felicitation by Boxing Federation of India (BFI) in New Delhi on April 17.
Mary took to the stage with coaches and the Chairman of BFI, Ajay Singh. She was humble after her win and wanted other gold medallists—Vikas Krishnan and Gaurav Solanki—to answer to media’s questions instead of her. Here’s how she lauded the boxers,
“I would also like to congratulate the Male Boxers for their incredible performance and am sure winning 9 medals in Commonwealth will be a strong building block in realising BFI President’s vision of making India a boxing superpower a reality.”
Mary almost lashed out at a journalist when questioned about her retirement. She dismissed all the retirement speculations and made it clear that she wanted to play in Asian Games 2018, World Championships and Tokyo Olympics 2020. She believes that as long as she was training, no one could beat her easily.
“Who said age is a factor? Come here, I’ll show you. Who said that I am retiring, I have not thought of it yet all these are rumours. Taking part in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic is a different matter, but I stand by my words that I am not retiring yet.”
The veteran boxer has only one unfulfilled dream — getting an Olympic gold medal for India. Here’s what she had to say about it as quoted by ANI.
“Olympics medal isn’t everything for me if I can win then it’s very good, but if I can’t then it’ll always remain like an unfulfilled dream. Will try my best & focus on each step, wish all women athletes the best. I hope in upcoming games their performance will get better.”
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Mary got the better of Northern Ireland’s Kristian O’Hara in the CWG 2018 final with a unanimous verdict of 5-0.
