Mary Kom’s aura of grandeur still dominates Indian women’s boxing but, at the 2021 Tokyo Games, hopes are high that the women’s contingent will return with more than one medal. And Pooja Rani is a favourite among them. The Haryanvi has a gold from the ASBC Asian Boxing Championships in May and a victory over world champion Atheyna Bylon in March this year at the Boxam International Tournament where she won silver. There’s also plenty of conviction, a positive mindset and preparation which includes sparring with men and watching bouts from the recent European qualifiers to assess her rivals’ technique and game plan.
Having waited for a decade to make it to her maiden Olympics, Rani is keen to seize the opportunity. “My dream is finally materialising,” she says, “but now it has become bigger. I want to win a medal.” To do so, she knows she has to master the game’s mental aspect. “If you aren’t mentally fit, no amount of physical training will help,” she says. With the help of sponsors Lakshya Sports, Rani has access to a sports psychologist, who allays her fears and boosts her self-belief.
Rani took to boxing at 18 because, unlike basketball and netball, it was an individual discipline. “I didn’t like that in team games you could lose because of someone else’s poor form,” she says. But her enthusiasm for boxing didn’t go down well with her father, Rajveer Singh Vohra, a police officer, who saw it as a “gundonwaala game” [a game of goons]. For the first six months, Rani practised in secret at the Capt. Hawa Singh Boxing Academy in Bhiwani. “The day I’d get hurt, I’d be sad, not because I was in pain but because I knew seeing my scars, my family would make me quit,” says Rani. Vohra’s mind changed after a talk with her coach, Sanjay Sheoran, and thanks to Rani’s own stubbornness and natural flair for boxing. In 2009, in her first year of throwing punches, she became a youth state champion and followed it up with a silver in the Youth Nationals in the 60kg category. Her father rewarded her with a bike.
Rani’s journey to the top has had its rocky moments. In Diwali 2017, she burnt her hand, which kept her out for six months. Eager to make up for lost time, she hurried into training and sustained a shoulder injury. Her confidence dented, Rani felt it was better to switch to the 81kg category. In April 2019, she won the ASBC Asian Championship gold, a result that convinced India’s foreign coach Raffale Bergamasco that she should return to 75kg. “Raffale had more faith in me than I had in myself,” says Rani. Bergamasco still has that faith. He believes the six-time national champion and the 2014 Asian Games medallist has a shot at finishing in the top three in Tokyo.
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