Amman, Jordan, March 9, 2020: Six-time world champion Mary Kom booked a berth at Tokyo 2020 after reaching the semi-finals of the Asia-Oceania Olympic boxing qualifiers in Amman, Jordan on Monday.
Mary Kom, who won a bronze at the London Olympics, will make a return to the Games in Tokyo. It will be only the second appearance at the quadrennial global showpiece for Kom, who won her first world title in 2002 and most recent in 2018.
Kom, who turned 37 on March 1, defeated Philippines boxer Irish Magno on a unanimous 5-0 decision in the quarterfinals of the women’s 51kg category at the Prince Hamzeh Hall to book her Olympic spot.
“I deserve this because I faced so many challenges,” Kom said. “I have had to put up with a lot of negativity with people saying I would neve make it back after marriage, having children and so on. But I have shown them who I am and what I can do.”
Kom will meet China’s Chang Yuan in the last four of the women’s flyweight division.
With Simranjit Kaur winning her 60kg quarterfinal in the last Indian bout on the seventh day of the nine-day competition - ending on Wednesday - a total of eight Indian boxers have so far booked Tokyo Olympic berths.
Among them was world number one Amit Panghal, who qualified for his maiden Olympic Games. The top seed edged out a familiar foe Carlo Paalam of Philippines in a 4-1 split verdict in the men’s 52kg division.
The other Indian boxers who have sealed an Olympic quota so far are Asian Championships gold medallist Pooja Rani (women’s 75kg), two-time World Championships bronze medallist Lovlina Borgohain (women’s 69kg), Commonwealth Games gold medallist Vikas Krishnan (men’s 69kg), Ashish Kumar (men’s 75kg) and Satish Kumar (men’s +91kg).
Meanwhile Mohammad Al-Wadi secured a storming quarterfinal victory to become the fifth boxer from host country Jordan to qualify for the Olympics.
Al-Wadi overturned a first-round deficit to win the judges’ decision in the men’s featherweight 57kg class against South Korea’s Ham Sang-myeong and join teammates Hussein and Zeyad Ishaish, Odai Al-Hindawi and Obada Al-Kasbeh on the plane to Japan this summer.
