A load of crap from an idle brain

We all know the number of times Sachin Tendulkar adjusts his guard between each delivery, but am sure hardly anyone knows about a woman from the remote North Eastern state of Manipur who is a 4 time World Boxing Champion.

Mangte Chungneijang Merykom also known as Mary Kom is the joint Rajiv Gandhi Kehl Ratna award winner for the year 2009 along with boxer Vijender Singh and wrestler Sushil Kumar. A mother of two who came back from a 2 year break from the sport to win her fourth successive World Amateur Boxing gold medal in 2008.

Sad that so less is known about her.  There is some detailed information about her at the Women Boxing Archive Network here. A true champion who is described by the International Boxing Association as “Magnificient Mary”.

Boxing is the only Olympic sport where women couldnt participate.  The sport at Olympics was restricted to men only.  From the 2012 London Olympics, this barrier is to go and women’s boxing will make a grand entry.

Of course, Mary Kom has her eyes fixated on the top prize at the Olympics.  Click on this link for a video on CNN-IBN about the boxer.

Above pictures source:  WBAN and Dailylife

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After all the overhyped candidates in tennis, long jump, boxing, shooting and archery fizzled out, the news about Sushil Kumar winning the bronze in the freestyle 68kgs wrestling is indeed heartening.

Wrestler Sushil Kumar gave India one more reason to won cheer when he won the bronze medal in the freestyle 66kg category at the Beijing Olympics on Wednesday.

Sushil defeated Leonid Spiridonov of Kazakhstan 3-1 in the repechage match of the men’s freestyle wrestling 66kg to win India’s India’s first wrestling medal since the 1952 Helsinki Games.  He is only the second Indian wrestler after Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav to win an Olympic medal. Jadhav had won a bronze medal in the 1952 Games.

In the earlier rounds of repechage Sushil overcame the challenge of USA’s Doug Schwab and Belarrussian Albert Batyrov in the first two repechage rounds. Sushil had lost to Ukrainian Andriy Stadnik in his quarter-final bout.

This is also the first time since 1952 that India has two Olympic medals. Earlier, Abhinav Bindra won first-ever Olympics gold medal for the country in the 10meter air rifle event.

Update – Vijender Kumar assured of bronze in 75kg boxing

Vijender Kumar assured India of yet another medal when he entered the semi-finals of the middleweight (75kg) category on Wednesday. Vijender defeated Ecuador’s Carlos Gongora 9-4 at the Workers’ Gymnasium.

In the Olympic boxing event even the losing semifinalists get a bronze medal. Earlier, Jitender Kumar lost his 51kg quarter-final bout and missed the Olympic medal by a whisker. Jitender lost to European champion Georgy Balakshin of Russia in the last eight stage 15-11.

Above picture and news courtesy: IBNlive

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