New Delhi: With five world titles already to her name, MC Mary Kom (51kg) will be gunning for a sixth consecutive gold medal and an Olympic berth at the AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships will take place at the Olympic Stadium in Qinhuangdao, China from May 9 –20, in Qinhuangdao. Kom, who is no less than a living legend in sport of women’s boxing, has won world titles four times in the pin weight and once in the fly weight division, which was at Barbados in 2010.

This will be the first time the 29-year-old will compete in the 51 kilogram weight class. The veteran boxer gave a sterling performance at the Asian Championships bagging the fly weight title; she beat the reigning World Champion in 51 kg and the 2010 Asian Games gold medallist Ren Cancan of China en route to winning the gold. Magnificent Mary (as nicknamed by AIBA the International Boxing Association) has left no stones unturned in her preparation for the mega event and is all geared up to realize her Olympic dream.

“The World Championships will be different ball game this time around. With an Olympic berth at stake everyone will put their best foot forward. I have been training very hard to make sure I do well and grab that all important qualification spot”, expressed Kom during her training session at the Karnail Singh Stadium, in New Delhi.

Another strong contender for India at the world championship will be the former World Champion and five times Asian Champion L Sarita Devi (60kg). In the previous edition of the Championships at Barbados, Sarita participated in the 51 kg weight and lost out in the preliminaries. She shifted to the 60 kilogram weight class before the 2012 Asian Championships owing to her Olympic preparation and went on to bag her fifth consecutive gold medal at the continental championship, beating the likes of Asian Games gold medallist and former World Champion Cheng Dong of China.

The 30-year-old veteran, who has competed and won medals in five different weight division over the years, said changing weights has been a challenge for her, but now she is well settled in the 60 kilogram and is confident of a good performance.

She added, “The competition is going to be tough at the Championships, but we have been preparing hard for this moment for a long time now and hopefully things will work out as planned”.

Accompanying the two veterans of the sport will be 2012 Asian Championships silver-medallist Pooja Rani (75kg). She will be competing in the third Olympic weight division and will make her World Championship debut this year. 

Talking about India chances at the world championships Chief Coach Anoop Kumar said, “All the girls selected to partake in the event are the best in their weight division and are peaking at the right time. It’s very tough to predict the kind of results we can expect as the nature of the competition is going to be very tough, but we are hopeful of a good performance”.


National Coach D Chandra Lal believes Indian boxers have a good chance to qualify, but a lot will depend on the draw of the championship. He added, “Asian Championships earlier this year was the big litmus test for us and our girls passed with flying colours. It was a great performance that has brought us into the fray in a big way. With only five quota places available for the Asian continent, winning a qualification will be tough, but we have two prime boxers in our side, Mary Kom and Sarita Dev, who are well prepared and all set to give their best”.

A nineteen member strong Indian boxing contingent including 10 boxers and support staff will depart for the port city in China on Tuesday from the IGI Airport in New Delhi. The seventh edition of the tournament will serve as the only qualifying event for the London 2012 Games.

At the Olympics, there will be three weight categories for women, which will be flyweight (51kg), lightweight (60kg) and middleweight (75kg). However, the World Championships features ten categories in total, from light flyweight (46-49kg) to super heavyweight (over 81kg). With 24 quotas places up for grabs – eight in each of the Olympic weight categories – the 2012 Women’s World Boxing Championships is sure to be fiercely competitive. Asia has been awarded 2 quota places in both the fly and the light weight division and 1 quota in the middle weight class.