at the Strandja competition as a reward for his perseverance and next goal of competing in the World Championships.
His mother constantly chastising him for wasting both their time and their hard-earned money is one of Govind Kumar Sahani’s first memories of his participating in sports, first karate and subsequently boxing
Money was difficult to come by as the farmer’s kid in Gorakhpur with three other siblings. There was certainly not enough to “spend” on frivolous activities like sports.
My mother would remark that I was spending my time in faaltu ke kaam when I first started training in karate. “On the one hand, you’re wasting money,” she would add.You are wasting money on one hand. You are wasting your time, on the other hand. You are aware of how middle-class families operate. At the Strandja Memorial Boxing Competition, Sahani won a silver medal in the 48kg weight division. “You had to grin and suffer it,” Sahani told The Indian Express.
Three silver medals and five bronze medals were among the eight medals Indian boxers brought home from Strandja. Although losing the gold to Shodiyorjon Melikuziev of Uzbekistan, who won silver at the Asian U-22 Championships, Sahani’s silver was proof that his career is headed in the right direction.
The 25-year-old has never had absolute confidence in his job choice.
He relocated to Meerut’s sports hostel in 2011 to escape his mother’s persistent queries.
where he didn’t have to go to his mother for money and at least his basic needs were being met. For a few years, that helped to reassure his mother that her son wasn’t squandering his life away in a meaningless sport, but eventually, deeper worries started to creep in on their own.
“After I entered the hostel, the family at once began to have faith in my dreams. But a year later, AIBA suspended the Indian Boxing Federation, and all of a sudden, things started to spiral out of control once more, according to him.
It was one of his darkest periods as a fighterSahani nearly gave up boxing in 2015 due to the lack of boxing events following the suspension of the Indian Amateur Boxing Federation (IABF) and the lack of a backup job.
“My fundamental requirements were being met in the hostel. Yet even in the tiny competitions I was taking part in, I began to suspect cheating when I would outshine my opponent and still lose. I began to feel as though I had reached a ceiling that I couldn’t even see. At national camps, there were boxers I could have defeated with one hand restrained behind my back. I remained in the sports hostel at that time. I hadn’t just gone there to get free food.I eventually began to believe that my mum had been correct all along. This was a fruitless endeavour. I told her I was quitting and would do anything to at least assist me generate an income when I got home,” he recalls.
Instead of giving up, he chose to change his allegiance to Nagaland and compete in the 2018 National Boxing Tournament, where he took home the bronze medal. He had his first opportunity to represent India a year later in the GeeBee Boxing Tournament in Finland, where he won silver. He soon obtained employment with the Assam Rifles as well.
He will likely move up to the 51kg weight class later this year because the 48kg weight class is not an Olympic weight class, putting him in the sights of World Championship medalist Amit Panghal. But first, he wants to compete in the 48 kg event for India in the World Championships in Tashkent in May.
He feels he has earned a chance to compete for a medal at the World Championships after years of effort.
Boxer banke galti kar di ab nahi lagta. He states, “I don’t think that becoming a boxer was a mistake anymore.
