EXCLUSIVE - Want to Break My Record & Return a Champion From Tokyo Olympics: Lovlina Borgohain

Lovlina Borgohain is slated to represent India at the Tokyo Olympics later this year. She secured a berth for Summer Games when she defeated Uzbekistan’s Maftunakhon Melieva 5-0 in the Asian Olympic qualifiers women’s welterweight (69 kg category) in the quarterfinals.

Soon after she contracted Covid-19 and was out of action after she travelled to her hometown in to meet her ailing grandmother.  She hence missed the Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) sanctioned 52-day Europe tour for 16 elite Indian boxers.

“I had contracted Covid-19, it was a challenging time as my health did not allow me to train at all,” Lovlina told News18.com, when asked she coped at the time.

“I tried to keep myself positive and motivated, used to do meditation and I choose to focus on the future possibilities, make myself better,” she added.

“My journey back to fitness was challenging. When I was home, did have problems training as I did not have much equipment in the beginning. I was sent some and could finally get back to training again. Initially, after recovering, it was hard to train but slowly and steadily started getting back to form,” Lovlina said.

She will become the first Assamese woman to take part in the Olympics, something the 23-year-old says is incredibly proud about.

“I feel proud that I will be the first Assamese to represent India at the Olympics and make my nation proud. I will make sure to give my best and break my record,” she said.

Lovlina burst onto the scene when she won bronze in the welterweight category at the 2017 Asian Boxing Championships. She followed it up with another two bronze medals at the 2018 AIBA Women’s World Champions in New Delhi as well as at the 2019 edition in Russia. She was among the 27 sportspersons who were honoured with the Arjuna award on National Sports Day last year.

When asked if the recognition from the Government has changed anything for her and the attitude of people around her, she said: “Due to the ongoing pandemic, nothing has changed as such after the Arjuna award. I try to think that I have much more to win and gain. I get motivated to better, especially by the love I get from people. I want to get the Khel Ratna was well.”

“Another change would be that there is more expectations now,” she added.

She is looking forward to challenging the best in the world at Tokyo 2020, “Training hard for the Olympics, and my aim would be to give a good account of myself with a strong performance. Want to break my record and return a champion.”

Lovlina would be part of Adidas’s ‘Impossible Is Nothing’ campaign, which aims ‘to inspire and enable everyone to make their possibilities become a reality’.

“What I understand by ‘Impossible is Nothing’ is to focus more about the possibilities. And moreover, I want every woman to believe that they are equal to men in every regard and they can do anything,” she said.

“Women too can put on the gloves and represent the county in boxing and also do well,” she added.

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