Watch: Boxing star Mary Kom trains hard ahead of Tokyo Olympics
Having grabbed a silver medal at the Asian Boxing Championships last month, Mary Kom is already back to the grind. Soon after returning from Dubai, the ace pugilist is now busy honing her skills at the Army Sports Institute in Pune.
In a 19-second video released by the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) on Twitter, Mary Kom can be seen warming up with light jogging before indulging in some shadow practice.
Strength and conditioning coach Mobya Duyu can be seen with the six-time world champion during her training.
In the second attempt, Mary Kom stretched her full body facing the ground, rested her full weight on the left hand and then used her right hand to pull the Theraband. Duyu, holding the other end of the Theraband, served as a static weight.
The continental meet came at the right time for Mary Kom ahead of the Tokyo Olympics. Although she went down fighting against two-time world champion Nazym Kyzaibay in the summit clash, she was able to get a feel of high-level competition after a long time.
Apart from the Asian meet, the only tournament Mary Kom and other Tokyo Olympics-bound boxers participated in this year was the Boxam International Tournament in March. Indian boxers bagged 10 medals at the Boxam meet, with Mary Kom settling for bronze.
With little time before the Tokyo Olympics, the Indian boxers are likely to travel to Europe for an exposure-cum-training trip before they head directly to Japan next month.
Working on fine-tuning some of the tactics: Mary Kom
Despite winning silver at the Asian Championships, Mary Kom admitted there is a lot of work that still needs to be done before the Olympics. The 38-year-old also said that she is happy to have executed some plans in the Asian meet.
โPersonally, I was keen to see how I am responding in a match environment of a tournament. I have been working to perfect some techniques and increase my strength and stamina after recovering from dengue. I have also been working on fine-tuning some of the tactics all this while in training and I am happy to see them being successfully executed,โ said Mary Kom.