Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - HT Navi Mumbai Live
Small setbacks shape big dream
The transformational journey of Lovlina Borgohain, from Muay Thai to Olympic medal
Just a few months after Lovlina Borgohain first stepped out of her village, Baramukhia, near Assam’s border with Nagaland, she found herself in a spot of bother. It was 2012, and the then 14-year-old boxer was at her first tournament, the sub-junior nationals in Kolkata. She needed a red corner kit, but did not have one. She asked another girl, who had lost her bout, if she could borrow her kit.
“She agreed but with a condition that I give her my mobile phone,” Borgohain said in an earlier interview to HT in October last year.
That phone was her lifeline. For the two months since Borgohain had left home to join the boxing programme at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) centre in Guwahati, more than 300km away, it was the only way to stay in touch with her family. Borgohain took the hard decision and gave the phone.
But she did not get the promised kit.
“You know some incidents in life leave a mark. It still rankles whenever I think of it,” she said.
Borgohain became only the third boxer from India to win an Olympic medal — after Vijender Singh’s 2008 Beijing bronze and her idol Mary Kom’s 2012 London bronze — when she was assured of at least a bronze medal after winning her quarterfinal match against Chinese Taipei’s Chen Nien-Chin in Tokyo and moving into the semis.
She now has a chance to make history.
Back home, Lovlina’s parents — her father owns a small tea plantation — chose not to watch the quarterfinal bout live.
“We never watch Lovlina’s matches live,” said her father Tiken Borgohain over the phone. “We do watch the highlights later on but it’s a bit difficult to watch the bouts live because in that moment when she is in the ring, it gets too exciting for us.”
But they got the news immediately, as neighbours poured into the house to congratulate them and their phones began ringing non-stop.
“Our district (Golaghat) is still in the Covid red zone but the excitement among all our friends, relatives and neighbours is so much that quite a few people have been visiting to congratulate us,” Tiken said.
Borgohain last met her parents in February in Kolkata, when her mother underwent a kidney transplant there.
Borgohain, Tiken said, was fascinated with combat sports from a very early age, inspired by her twin elder sisters Lima and Licha, older to her by four years, who were both into Muay Thai. When she was 11, Borgohain too started training in Muay Thai and Thang-ta, a Manipuri martial art. In 2012, when she was 14, she was spotted during a scouting run by Padam Boro, the coach who runs the boxing programme at SAI’s Guwahati centre. Boro was short of boxers for the upcoming sub-junior nationals..
“I noticed that she had a good height and build for a boxer,” Boro said over the phone. “So I gave her a few tests to check her skills. I realised that she could be a very good boxer so I didn’t have to think too much before I picked her.”
It was a break for Borgohain, but she had to leave home and go very far away. The decision was made easy by her mother Mamoni Borgohain, who told her that she must take the opportunity.
“We are three sisters and like in Indian villages there was this constant this talk that there is no son,” Borgohain said. “Our father had to stay away from home for months due to work. My mother used to say that we have to do something to change our situation.”
Borgohain went to her first tournament, the sub junior nationals in Kolkata, with bare minimum training. “In Thai boxing you have 1-2 punches (a combination of two punches),” Borgohain said. “I was told by the coach, just don’t use the kick, and throw as many punches as possible. I did just that.”
It got her a gold, but Borgohain has come a long way from those rookie days.
“At this moment, Lovlina is now technically very sound, in all aspects of her game,” Boro said. “She is at a stage now where, whatever tournament she plays in, she can win a medal.”
The technical aspect of Borgohain’s boxing was on full display in the quarterfinal fight against Chen Nien-Chin, a boxer who has beaten Borgohain in all three of their meetings before this one.
Chen Nien-Chin, the 2018 world champion, is stocky and powerful and likes to fight by moving close to her opponent and unleashing a barrage of punches.
Borgohain, who is taller and leaner, simply did not allow her to do that. With a stiff jab and a deft footwork, Borgohain was in control of the distance for the entire fight. As Chen Nien-Chin got more and more frustrated, her punches became more reckless and Borgohain capitalized with a series of hooks and straights.
“I had been planning how to beat her. I enjoyed the bout, I played with freedom, without any fear,” Borgohain said.
“If she fights like she did today, I am certain that she will bring home the Olympic gold,” Boro said.
Just before the bout, Borgohain called up her father, who told her that she should go win the biggest fight of her life. Borgohain, careful since she was 14, then switched off her phone and stowed it safely in her bag.