Click to play videoGuwahati: M C Marykom is a world champion, three times over, and now she is restarting a tough journey to reclaim her glory.
Marykom is practicing hard these days for the Asian Boxing Championship. Marykom is 26, but after having given birth to two children; she dreams of fighting again
“I hope to be selected for the 2012 Olympic squad. I am also hopeful for the 2010 Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games," she says.
Today Marykom stands for all these aspiring women boxers waiting for recognition. Marykom has won the Arjuna Award and the Padmashree but she believes she has been unfairly denied a claim to the country's highest sporting honour: the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna.
"I applied three times for Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna but still I didn't get that award. This year when I applied for the third time, Milkha Singh (chairman of the selection committee) said: who is Marykom? I am very hurt by what he said.”
Marykom works as a police sub-inspector and gets Rs 5,000 monthly as financial assistance from the Sunil Gavaskar's Champs Foundation.
The country has got interested in boxing after the Beijing Olympics, but one of India’s greatest boxers is unsung and unappreciated.
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