Indian women boxers let down their fans with their ‘left a lot to be desired performance’ at the recently-concluded 9th AIBA World Boxing Championships in Astana, Kazakhstan. And one lady, who has brought so many laurels for the country in the heavyweight category, Kavita Chahal makes no bones about the boxers’ showing in Astana.
“I thought Indian boxers put up a disappointing performance in Astana. We fielded ten boxers and nearly returned empty-handed had not Sonia Lather got us a silver medal in the featherweight (57-kg) category losing to an Italian opponent in the final,” she says.
Kavita, who had twice won bronze medals at the 2010 and 2012 AIBA World Championships in Barbados and China, says it was an overall poor performance from the Indian boxers.
“Winning a medal at the World Championship is never easy – I have won it twice and I know how tough it is to make a podium finish. This time around, I was not around and so really don’t know what went wrong,” she quips.
The biggest frustrating point is that our boxers were not able to seal any Olympic berths. “Three of them had an opportunity but could not qualify. I was really expecting Mary Kom and Sarita to make the cut but it didn’t happen that way,” she says.
She agreed that the absence of a federation clearly affected the performance of the boxers. “The lack of a federation has done more harm to both women and men boxers. No one can deny that”, Kavita observes.
Kavita had a chance to make it a hat-trick of World Championship medals at the 2014 edition in Korea but she lost in the quarterfinals. She gave the 2016 edition a miss as she gave birth to a boy.
“My son is six months old and gradually as he grows up I will start training and return to the ring. Mary Kom has time and again return to the international circuit after having three sons - I feel that I can also come back stronger after motherhood and serve the country in future,” the Haryana Police employee says with an air of confidence.
