Magnificent Mary, better known as MC Mary Kom, has been synonymous to women’s boxing in India for more than a decade now. After winning the World Championships for a record five consecutive times, she now has set her eyes set on the London Olympics 2012.

Call it fate, destiny or plain lucky, she made it to the London Olympics in the 51-kg weight category despite failing to win a medal in the World Championships, which was also serving as the only Olympic qualifier event for London Games.

This is the first time that woman boxing has been introduced in the Olympics and her qualification chances received a huge setback after she lost in the quarterfinals of the World Championships in Qinhuangdao, China. But things were not over for her as her fate hung by a thread and her shot at the Olympics depended on England’s Nicola Adams’ performance in the semis.

It was perhaps her destiny and luckily for India, Adams won her bout that gave Mary an Olympic quota, her first one and considering her age, might be last one.

She has been a prime example of how adversity brings best out of a mortal soul and despite so much hardships, she is set forward to make the country proud once against at the biggest stage of them all “The Olympics”.

Since her qualification, she has been saying that she wants to win a medal before calling it quits. Mary has already turned 29 and it is highly improbable that she would around for the next Olympics. So this is her only chance to live her dream and going by what she has achieved, she does have a strong chance to return home with a medal.

The Manipuri pugilist has two win just two bouts for her two enter the medal round and it does look that it should not be a problem. Mary Kom, who has won the World championship five times on the trot has changed her category for the quadrennial event and does look in great shape.

She was lucky to qualify but now she is all confident to put up a good show in the Olympics. Mary feels that after doing so much for the country, she has never received her share of fame and she wants to win a medal at the mega event to acquire the recognition. She has maintained that an Olympic medal will set her free.

Moreover her confidence is something which can take her all the way. Mary feels that she got little baffled at facing boxers from Europe in the qualifiers but now when she has faced them, it would not pose any further problems for her.

The kind of confidence she exudes, is just worth praising. There is hardly anything that can bog her down. She feels that if she took part in the World Championship in 48-category she would have just walked through it, but then nevertheless she is all set for the sporting extravaganza.
She also feels that World Championships is tougher that Olympics and if she could reign supreme for five times their, then it should not be much difficult in London.

By Samikshan Dutta Choudhury
Indian Sports News Network