After first bronze, Manisha to punch above her weight

Vinayak Padmadeo
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, April 25

Manisha Moun was disappointed after she failed to enter the finals of the Asian Boxing Championships in Bangkok.

Manisha lost her semifinal bout against Taiwan’s Huang Hsiao-Wen 2-3 in a split verdict in the 54kg weight. A win would have meant a first-ever gold medal bout for the 21-year-old from Kaithal. But it wasn’t to be.

“I am disappointed yes. It was a close bout and it could have gone in my favour too,” Manisha told The Tribune on Thursday. “But I am happy now as it is my first major medal as part of the senior team,” she said. After this breakthrough, Manisha has decided to jump to the 57kg weight category, which is one of the weight categories pencilled to be part of the Olympics programme in Tokyo 2020.

Crowded lot

The 57kg category is already crowded with a number of pedigreed boxers including 2018 World Championships silver medallist Sonia Chahal, who incidentally also won a bronze here, the 2016 World Championships silver medallist Sonia Lather and Shashi Chopra, former world youth champion. It is safe to say that her road to Olympics will be anything but easy. “I know it won’t be easy. Forget Olympics, I have to first get the better of competition in India and then hope to clinch a berth for Tokyo. Ye bahut lamba safar hai (It will be a long process),” she said of the task at hand.

“There are a lot of good and experienced boxers in the 57kg category, so I have a lot of hard work ahead of me,” she said. The climb up will not affect her much as she weighs around 56kg when not in the competition. “I will have to work on strengthening for sure. I will try to do my best,” she said.

Manisha, who hit the spotlight as a rookie at the World Championships in New Delhi, also felt that she needed to work on her weaknesses. “Today I felt I wasn’t balanced enough and because of that I wasn’t able to connect strongly. Also, my opponent took advantage of this. So, I need to work on this,” she said.