After win over Olympic silver medallist, boxer Nikhat Zareen able to rule 51kg division

Nikhat Zareen has an open, expansive, unfeigned persona exterior the boxing ring. Not fairly the bravado of the open guard inside the ring that can invite a crushing flurry. But there are remnants of exuberance from exterior of the sq., which may want reining in and a few tightening, if she has to step out of MC Mary Kom’s shadow within the girls’s flyweight division, and make a mark internationally. The gold at Strandja, beating the Olympic silver medallist was a begin.

The 25-year-old had audaciously gone warring to stake declare to even be the challenger previous to the final Olympics, asking Mary Kom to fetch up for a trial. Having earned her place as a contender now with Mary stepping apart, and crucially Nikhat getting the wins below her belt, there may be now the beginning of the particular battle — on the worldwide degree, starting with the May World Championships. Someone’s stored her on the straight and slim of ‘Planet Athlete-hungry-for-success’ clearly, as a result of she holds herself again from a self-appraisal of 10/10 when quizzed about her footwork. “I want to sound humble. So, chalo, theeke, 9/10 for footwork,” she chuckles in a mock-grudging tone.

Mary Kom danced when ducking and danced when dashing forth within the 51 kg ring, by her twinkling footwork. Nikhat reckons she’s not lead-footed in any respect, removed from it. But given there’s miles to go earlier than Paris comes alongside, she retains assessments conservative with loads of scope for enchancment: “Speed 7/10. Power in the punches 8/10.” Cumulative coolness from being a die-hard Salman Khan fan? 20/10. “Very big fan. Fan kya, AC samjho. I believe he hasn’t married yet, because he’s waiting for me,” she says in mock-grandiose tone, a bonafide pugilist, whose pre-punch, pre-jab is the pure bluster, uttered for impact.

Though not fairly the Dabangg-fan right here. “I used to be a big fan of his in Hum Saath-Saath Hain. That innocence on his face. Salman of ’90s,” says the Bhai-buff, although for somebody born solely in 1997, the film mania in Nizamabad should’ve began a lot later. “I’m waiting for his new Tiger movie,” she reminds.

But first got here boxing in serendipitous methods, to the woman who began out as a sprinter.

EARLY DAYS

The 25-year-old had audaciously gone warring to stake declare to even be the challenger previous to the final Olympics, asking Mary Kom to fetch up for a trial. (File)

Nikhat’s father Mohd Jameel Ahmed is a true-blue Hyderabadi. That is, he’s performed cricket elegantly, and prolonged his sports activities like to soccer and athletics, with no preconditions of magnificence in these. “He was into athletics, so I ran 100/200m. We were watching Urban Games once and I asked him why there were no female boxers. He said there are, but people think ‘ladkiyon mein dum ni hota’. I took that statement as a challenge. I wanted to change people’s mentality that women can do anything,” she says.

But girls within the 51kg division in India needed to do extra — vault over a really excessive gate, plus its halo. Take down the legend, MC Mary Kom, and for Nikhat, there wasn’t weight fluidity to manoeuvre across the rock in that class (learn EDot). A tad out of her depth once they met for the hurriedly-called trials previous to Tokyo qualification meets, she could be packed off to bide her time, to up her sport after a little bit of a tactical licking.

“I needed to go home after that. Eat my mom’s food. Play with my nephews, nieces,” she remembers, of toddlers aged 4, 2 and seven 1/2 years. “I of course felt bad because Olympics wouldn’t come for another 4 years (3). But I always believed there’s more to come. And maybe Tokyo wasn’t my destiny. I didn’t look back and moved on,” she provides.

Boxing has all the time been about “winning and learning” for Nikhat. In 2017, she tore her shoulder and forearm. “It was a bad case. I never imagined I could get such an injury. It hurt and took a year to heal. But I believe I got wiser and more mature after that injury. God wanted me to become mentally stronger,” she says.

Fleet-footed she is perhaps, however there was and stays a lot about ring-craft that Nikhat is conscious she’ll have to work on, to be spoken of in the identical breath as a number of World Champion, Mary Kom. “Experience was the big difference,” she avers when talking of the current semifinal towards Turkish Buse Naz Çakıroğlu, the silver medallist from Tokyo.

“It was sweet revenge because I’d lost to her last year in semis. I’d worked on my mistakes and knew what was her strength, and had the strategy to not let her play her game,” she says.

At the Bosphorus Boxing Tournament in Istanbul final 12 months, Nikhat had crushed two-time world champion Nazym Kyzaibay of Kazakhstan, a day after packing off 2019 world champion Paltceva Ekaterina of Russia in pre-quarters. With gold medallist Stoyka Krasteva, in her late 30s, unlikely to be at Paris, a brand new crop awaits, outlines of which will probably be seen at Worlds and Asiad.

New chief girls’s coach Bhaskar Bhatt, was in Nikhat’s nook at Strandja. “I’d never worked with him at the elite level before. But he’s very hardworking and humble and gave me great support in that semifinal.” Nikhat had been very nervous, with recollections of final 12 months’s loss haunting her greater than the status of the Tokyo medallist. “I wasn’t sure how I would actually fight once inside the ring because I’d lost last year on a unanimous decision. He just shook me by the shoulder, looked me in the eyes and told me: ‘punch rukne nahi chahiye.’ He was so motivating, that I was pumped up.”

UPGRADES NEEDED

The humbly assessed 9/10 footwork and agility apart, Nikhat feels assured about her left and proper hooks — one thing she maxes together with her 163 cm body. Yet, tactically there’s a lot work to be performed. “Of course, you have to always change things. It can’t be the same, because people read you,” she says. One of Mary Kom’s enduring talents even when the pace flagged however she clung onto the spot gamely, was her anticipation of the opponent’s vary and when to go all in and when to parry from a distance. It got here from years of expertise and a canny mind.

Nikhat, not as pickled within the trickery but, understands she wants sheer selection to trump the wiles. “I need a game that can confuse people where they say, ‘iska samajh ni aata (it’s tough to read her). I should be able to alternate between very defensive and a change in style in a fraction of seconds,” she reckons.

Nikhat makes use of her sprinting previous principally to assist make weight now. She’s moved effectively previous the singular-tempo of blindly working rapidly on the observe — freely and ferociously. She’s studying to maintain her playing cards near her within the ring now — the ebullience, at instances an upbeat facade.