An excellent first day’s boxing at the XXX Olympiad here at London’s ExCeL Centre ended with India’s Chungneijang Mery Kom Hmangte, better known as Mary Kom , being the ‘star’ of the show. The five times World AIBA Pinweight (46 kg) Champion had moved up two weights to enable her to take part in this historic event and many wondered if she could reproduce her form of yesteryear for surely nothing else would suffice in a tournament that included such as Cancan Ren of China, GB’s Nikki Adams and Russia’s 2010 AIBA and 2011 European Champion, Elena Savelyeva.
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Well now we know. Mary Kom was greeted with rapturous applause, not only from the large Indian support but from fans of women boxing irrespective of nationality. She faced off against Poland’s talented Karolina Michalczuk, for many years, one of Europe’s elite boxers. The first round was shared, Kom edged the second thanks mainly to a couple of good hooks. All of the telling blows came from the Indian legend. She gradually took control and eased out a deserved 19:14 victor.
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.
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.
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Her loss to Ingrid Egner at the recent world championships in China served but to further fuel the belief that she would not be a major threat in these Games - and so it came to pass since Jonas was a very clear cut and deserving winner here and now moves on to face Ireland’s Katie Taylor on Tuesday. Jonas was pretty impressive Sunday but Taylor offers a very different challenge than Underwood. Jonas has never defeated the Bray native, losing 6:3 the last time they met at the Strandja Cup in Bulgaria. Her thoughts on that bout: “"We boxed and I gave her a bit too much respect, because at the time I was quite new on the international scene and I was a bit in awe. But times have changed and I'm 50 bouts on from then, so next time it'll be different."
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Jonas is looking forward to Monday’s bout with Taylor (2.30pm local UK) : "If you want to be Olympic champion there's not going to be any easy bouts and Katie's a great performer, world champion – she's class. I know her strengths, she knows my strengths, so hopefully the best person will win on the day but I'm going to be ready."
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.”
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.”
