‘Silver or gold’

Lovlina Borgohain and Nikhat Zareen

India's boxing medal hopes at the Paris Games will hinge on how its women pugilists perform, feels the country's lone Olympic medal-winning male boxer Vijender Singh, who expects the Nikhat Zareen-led squad to fetch at least two podium finishes.

Zareen (50kg), Preeti Pawar (54kg), Jaismine Lamboria (57kg) and Tokyo bronze-winner Lovlina Borgohain (75kg) make up the Indian women's squad, while Amit Panghal (51kg) and debutant Nishant Dev (71kg) are the two male boxers to have qualified for Paris.

In a free-wheeling interview to PTI editors at its headquarters, the 38-year-old Vijender, who won a bronze in the 2008 Beijing Games, said he expects the women to do well.

Vijender Singh

"I haven't really followed the fortunes of the male boxers but whatever I have read about women boxers has been encouraging. The girls will do well, I hope we get one or two medals. It could be a silver or may be even a gold," Vijender, who is also a BJP leader, said.

"It might be that they [the women boxers] will change the colour of the medals," he added.

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Besides Vijender, only two other Indian boxers - MC Mary Kom (London 2012) and Borgohain (Tokyo 2021) - have won bronze medals at the Olympics but none from the country has managed to reach the final and fight for gold. The women boxers have done exceedingly well in the run-up to the Games with Zareen and Borgohain becoming world champions in 2023 and Pawar and Lamoboria picking up bronze medals at the Asian Games as well as the Commonwealth Games.

The men, on the other hand, have been largely underwhelming, barring Dev, who won a bronze medal at last year's world championship to qualify for the Paris Games.

"There are less male boxers this time. Earlier we used to have five to six but this time only two are going," Vijender, who is also India's first male world championship medallist, said.

The highest number of Indian male boxers to make the Olympic cut was seven, which happened in the 2012 edition. In the 2008 Games, a then record of five pugilists had travelled to the main event after a stunningly good qualifying campaign. "I don't know why the standards have fallen, may be the boxers themselves would be better-placed to explain what's lacking," he said.

All eyes on boxers Nikhat, Lovlina

World Championship medallists Nikhat Zareen, Lovlina Borgohain and Nishant Dev will wade through draws that are at best tricky in their quest to achieve India's best Olympic medal tally in boxing when the competition kicks off here on Saturday.

Indian boxers have fetched three medals in the Olympics so far, all bronze. While Vijender Singh remains the only male to have achieved the feat back in the 2008 Beijing Games, women stars MC Mary Kom (2012) and Borgohain (2021) later added to the overall haul.

Expectations are high as two-time reigning world champion Zareen is at the forefront. The 28-year-old has three of the top medal contenders in the light-flyweight (50kg) division - China's Wu Yu, Thailand's Chuthamat Raksat and Uzbekistan's Sabina Bobokulov - in her half.Borgohain will be chasing history, to add to her 69kg bronze. The Assamese boxer, who has bulked up to 75kg, will clash with Norway's Sunniva Hofstad in the first round.

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