POOJA RANI: Can the Come-back Queen pull it off in Tokyo?

From ban in boxing by family to being on the verge of career end to Asian Championship Gold: her journey has so many ups and downs. Can she make her comeback more intriguing with an Olympic medal?

Boxing has previously produced two Olympic medals for India, both being bronze: one in 2008 Beijing by Vijender Kumar, another by Mary Kom in London 2012. A total of 9 Indian boxers have secured their participation in Tokyo Olympics. Along with, Vikas Krishan, Lovlina Borgohain, Asish Kumar, Satish Kumar, Mary Kom, Amit Panghal, Manish Kaushik, Simranjit Kaur India will have Pooja Rani competing in 75kg category.

POOJA RANI

“Good children don’t play boxing”

Pooja Rani Bohra was born on 17th February 1991 in the village of Haryana called Nimriwali from the Bhiwani District.

Pooja trained at the Hawa Singh Boxing Academy in Bhiwani, under the late Arjuna and Dronacharya awardee's son Sanjay Kumar. It was not easy for the 29-year-old boxer to start her journey of boxing. It took a year for her to find the courage to join the Hawa Singh Boxing Academy in her town because of her father. Despite hailing from Bhiwani, a district in Haryana dubbed as India's Cuba for the number of top boxers hailing from the region, convincing her father was a major stumbling block.

“My father didn’t support me when I had started out. He didn’t like boxing because he thought it was a violent sport. He didn’t mind me talking to other sports but boxing was a strict no-go zone”.

She kept it a secret from their family especially from her father who she knew would disapprove. In an interview, she mentioned that her father used to tell her that “good children don’t play boxing”. She would hide her injuries from the sport so that her father would not find out, staying over at friend's houses while her wounds subsided.

But when the secret disclosed and her father found out her boxing ambition, he restrained her from attending classes. It was her coach Sanjay Kumar Sheoran who had to plead with her family to allow her to compete and it took about 6 months to convince her parents to allow her to box professionally.

Roller Coaster Career:

Her first major win came in 2009 when she won the National Youth Boxing Championship. Her family became supportive of her career properly after this win. And she broke through to the National Stage.

Pooja won the silver medal first at the Asian Boxing Championships 2012 and then silver again in the Arafura Games 2012 held in Australia. She went on to win a Bronze medal for India in Incheon Asian Games 2014. She bagged another bronze in the Asian Boxing Championship 2015. She represented India in Commonwealth Games too.

Hopes were high from her for Olympic 2016. But heartbreak; she failed to even qualify for Rio However, losing at the second round of the AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships 2016.

2016 turned out to become more unbearable for her as she badly burnt her right hand while bursting crackers on Diwali.

“In 2016, I burnt my hand while bursting Diwali crackers. The right hand was massively affected. I underwent surgery and it took me nearly seven to eight months to heal. The entire recovery process lasted nearly a year.” Pooja told TOI.

When her hand recovered after a long break, as she just resumed her practice, she suffered another setback as now she picked up a shoulder injury at the end of 2017. A labrum tear and out of the ring for a considerable length of time again.

But fighting against all the odds, she revived, scripting a fairy-tale comeback by becoming the national champion in the 81kg category in 2018. And to make it more complete, next year, Pooja stunned the World Champion Wang Lina in the final of the Asian Championship in Bangkok to bag the Gold Medal.

Mission Tokyo:

With another Olympic Games round the corner and hopes were again high from her to qualify for Tokyo after her brilliant comeback. And this time round, she doesn’t let them down.

Talking about the COVID-19 delay in the Olympics income tax inspector Pooja Rani told to Jagran, “...if Olympic was held at the usual time, that would have been bad for me actually. Now, I have enough time to prepare more properly. I have got my Olympic ticket and now I want to focus only on medals.”

After the Asian Qualifying event Pooja became the first Indian woman boxer to qualify for the Tokyo Games. She will be representing India in the Women’s 69-75kg category. The competition will be very high for Pooja. The championship may well be a tough ask, to be honest. But if she stays at her top, with all his fighting spirit and determination, she does have a chance to pull off a podium finish. Team KheLoVerse wishes her all the good lucks.

An Article By: Sweta Chakraborty with Arpan Purkait

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