Mary Kom’s golden punch to history
Olympic bronze medallist boxer clinches historic sixth World Championships title; 21-year-old Sonia bags Silver medal in her maiden appearence
India’s MC Mary Kom won a historic sixth gold in the World Championships here on Saturday, the mother-ofthree doing, without breaking a sweat, what no other woman boxer has done or known before. Moments after Mary Kom became the most successful boxer in the history of women’s world championships by beating Ukraine’s Hanna Okhota in an unanimous 5-0 verdict in the 48kg category summit bout, young Sonia Chahal settled for a silver after losing her final.
The Olympic bronze medallist came into the all-important bout, which coincided with her 36th birthday, optimistic of adding to her five world championships titles, and, without an iota of doubt, she walked the talk against Okhota in front of a packed KD Jhadav Stadium.
The feisty Manipuri now has an incredible six gold and one silver in the showpiece, the last yellow metal coming in 2010 in Bridgetown. The results read 30-27, 29-28, 29-28, 30-27, 30-27 in favour of Mary Kom who had beaten the opponent in a tournament in Poland this year.
Before this World Championships, Mary Kom was tied with Ireland’s Katie Taylor (five gold and a bronze) on the number of medals won by a woman. With this, ‘Magnificent Mary’ also matched Cuban legend Felix Savon as the joint most successful pugilist (men and women) in the Championships history.
The feisty Manipuri, a mother of three children, won a silver in the inaugural edition in 2001 and then went on to win a gold each in the next five editions — 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2010.
Overwhelmed, Mary Kom broke down after coming out of the ring as she went around to greet the packed crowd and the assembled officials. Wrapped in the tricolour, she thanked her fans for their “unstinted” support.
India ended the championships with one gold, one silver and two bronze — from Lovlina Borgohain (69kg) and Simranjit Kaur (64kg).
India’s best performance ever was the eight medals, including four gold, it won in 2006 in New Delhi.
A packed crowd waited for Mary Kom to come out in the first final of the day. The Indian straightaway went into the ring and had her small prayer in the blue corner. It was a watchful start for both the boxers and the Ukrainian, much younger to the Indian, showed attacking intent and kept coming on Mary Kom.
The wily Indian soon began to take control. She stepped back and pounced on her opponent to land some clear punches. The first round clearly belonged to Mary Kom and all the judges gave points in her favour.
The second round was the most closely contested one with Mary Kom going for more attack. Okhota was able to land a few strikes on the Indian. This round also went in favour of Mary Kom, with three judges favouring her and two going for Okhota. The third round was dominated by Mary as she landed some telling blows on Okhota — a right-handed jab, lefthand combination which rattled the Ukrainian.
The crowd went berserk and when the result was announced, the noise reached its crescendo, and Mary Kom bowed to acknowledge.
The other Indian finalist, 21-year-old Sonia lost to Wahner Ornella Gabriele of Germany in the 57kg final in a split 4-1 decision to settle for a silver in her debut World Championships. Sonia, a rookie boxer who began competing at the senior level only since 2016, won the closelycontested first round but from there went downhill with her German opponent getting the upper hand to win 29-28, 29-28, 28-29, 29-28, 29-28.