Mary Kom, 9 other women boxers to resume training in Pune

Pune, May 5 (IANS): Six-time world champion and Olympic bronze-medallist boxer MC Mary Kom along with two other Olympic-bound pugilists — SimranjitKaur (60kg) and LovlinaBorgohain (69kg) — have been named in the elite women’s national camp that will start soon.

A total of 10 women boxers will resume training at the Army Sports Institute (ASI) here, following a decision to shift the camp from Patiala to a more secure environment in Pune, considering the raging Covid-19 pandemic.

The camp will continue till July 31, after which the Olympic-bound boxers will leave for Tokyo.

Among those who will be making a return to the national camp are 2019 World Championships bronze medallist JamunaBoro (54kg), who took a long break due to an injury.

Pooja Rani (75kg), who too has qualified for the Olympics, will continue to work with her coaches at Inspire Institute of Sport (IIS), Bellary, where she has been training since the lockdown began.

The ASI training camp will be conducted with a secure training module in which the players will be divided into three groups alongside their respective sparring partners and given different time slots.

“Considering safety of players, coaches and support staff, we have created a training plan for players in separate clusters to minimise the risk involved,” said HemantaKalita, general secretary, Boxing Federation of India (BFI). Rajasthan boxer ArundhatiChoudhary (69kg), who won gold at the AIBA Youth World Championships in Poland, has also been selected for the camp along with Manju Rani (48kg), Sonia Lather (57kg), Lalbuatsaihi (64kg), and Shashi Chopra (64kg).