A visibly emotional Mary Kom said later : ““This is a fantastic day, it is unbelievable for me to be here, very special. I have been fighting twelve years to get to this point, to be at the Olympic Games. It has been my life-long ambition to get here. My victory is very emotional because not only as am I finally here but it is also my twins’ fifth birthday today and I am missing it. This win is a gift to them”.
Earlier on Sunday, WBAN brought you a comprehensive report on the defeat of leading American hope, Quanitta ‘Queen’ Underwood at the hands of Great Britain’s Natasha Jonas. In Europe it had been widely felt for most of the past year that Underwood was not quite the boxer she was back in 2010 when she fought a gallant fight against Katie Taylor and only narrowly lost. Defeats in the United States and Canada raised some doubts, indeed many experts felt that she was lucky to have gained the verdict over Michaela Mayer at the U.S trials in Spokane.
Underwood’s thoughts, are covered more fully in our earlier feature by Julie Goldsticker but will she be supporting Jonas the British media wondered : “I’ll support Katie Taylor in my weight class because I’m not in it anymore. I was looking forward to that rematch. I wanted to get in there with her. That was really my motivation for this fight. It wasn’t the gold yet, it was to get to that rematch with Katie Taylor but now I get to cheer her on, I know she’s gonna bring home the gold.”
“I’m going to keep fighting but I got here to the Olympics this time. “I don’t think it’s in me to stick around for four years. I did what I had to do, I waited around for four years for it to be an Olympic sport. I think it’s time for me to move on to a new chapter in my life. Now, its time to focus on something else.”