New Delhi: Indian boxing star MC Mary Kom along with other Indian women boxers including  two other Olympic-bound pugilists Simranjit Kaur (60kg) and Lovlina Borgohain (69kg) have been picked in the elite women national camp which is all set to resume in Pune, at the Army Sports Institute, as part of boxers’ preparations for the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games.  

The decision to shift the camp to Pune which will go on till July 31, was taken after a massive spike in the Covid-19 cases. Jamuna Boro (54kg), the 2019 World Championship bronze medallist is also making a comeback to the national camp after a long break owing to an injury as her name is also included among the 10 boxers picked to participate in the national camp.

Whereas Pooja Rani (75kg), another Olympic qualified pugilist, who has been training at IIS Bellary from the time of  lockdown, will continue her training at the same venue for now. 

The national training camp will take place with a secure training module, which will have players divided into 3 different groups along with their respective sparring partners and coaches and they will be training at different scheduled times within the group.

Hemanta Kalita, General Secretary of Boxing Federation of India said, “With the Asian Championships and the Olympic Games approaching, our focus will be to utilise the time we have in hand and maximise the training ahead of these two events. Considering safety of players, coaches and support staff, we have created a training plan for players in separate clusters to minimise the risk involved. These are tough times but as much as we have to be careful, we also have a job at hand and we are ensuring our boxers can get back to camp and start training and working to get the best results possible,” 

Arundhati Choudhary (69 kg) the pugilist from Rajasthan, who had been brilliant during her gold medal victory at the recently concluded AIBA Youth World Championship in Poland, has also been named in the camp along with Manju Rani (48kg), Sonia Lather (57kg), Lalbuatsaihi (64kg) and Shashi Chopra (64kg). Jasmine (57kg) is another highlight of the camp. She was highly impressive during her first senior international outing in Spain at the Boxam Tournament earlier in March where she clinched a silver medal. 

The boxers will be accompanied by a 10-member team of coaches and support staff including Head Coach Md Ali Qamar and Foreign Coach Raffaele Bergamasco.