Greater Noida: Tokyo Olympian Simranjit Kaur made a comeback to the ring at the recently held National Games in Dehradun. The 29-year-old, one of India’s finest boxers in lightweight class, said she had all but quit the sport due to less competitions coming her way. The boxer also felt sidelined due to BFI’s erstwhile selection policy that preferred younger boxers.
Simranjit was part of the national camp but it was young Jaismine Lamoboria, the Commonwealth Games medallist, who was picked for the Asian Games — a Paris Olympics qualifier. Jaismine eventually qualified in 57kg from the world qualification tournament. Selection during the regime of former high-performance director Bernard Dunne was based on assessment of the boxers at the camp.
Simranjit gave a tough fight to Jaismine in the final of the 2023 National Championships and was expecting to find her name in one of the two Olympic qualifiers.
“I was expecting that I will be sent to at least one qualifier but that never happened. How can you decide beforehand who will be selected?” she said.
“In India the moment you turn 26 years, you are sidelined and focus shifts to youth. What about the years of experience we have? If you have watched the recent world championships, boxers above the age of 28 were on the podium. So, why stop us? If any young boxer can beat us then of course give them the opportunity.”
The evaluation-based system to pick the national team was criticised by several top boxers. “We have so many quality boxers in India. There is competition in every weight class as you can see in this National Championship, so selection should happen based on trials and not evaluation. When you have trials you know that you fought and lost,” said the 2018 world championship medallist.”
The Punjab boxer said she felt so dejected that she wanted to give up the sport. “I have not competed in any international tournament since the 2023 Strandja Cup despite being in the camp. In India, I fought in the 2023 Nationals (December) and there was a long gap. The next tournament I played was the National Games last month. You need to have more competitions at home, like we used to have before 2020. I hope things will get better.”
The two-time Asian Championships medallist decided to take a break after she could not make it to the team for the Olympic qualification tournament. She is now training in Mohali under coach Surinder Kaur.
“I took a break of 8-9 months. The thought of quitting the sport crosses my mind but it’s just that I cannot stay away from boxing. With boxing back for the LA Games I want to give it another try (at the Olympics).”
This time Simranjit believes she has come back stronger. On Tuesday, she cruised to the semi-finals with a clinical victory against Prachi of Railways.
The break has helped her to gather her thoughts. “There was no variety in sparring partners in the camp. We need 4-5 boxers to spar with. Then there was a restriction on individual training. I was puzzled by all this. Now, I am determined to focus only on my boxing. Stress will always be there but I should focus on my performance,” Simranjit said.
