Nikhat Zareen has an open, expansive, unfeigned persona outdoors the boxing ring. Not fairly the bravado of the open guard inside the ring that may invite a crushing flurry. But there are remnants of exuberance from outdoors of the sq., which may want reining in and a few tightening, if she has to step out of MC Mary Kom’s shadow within the girls’s flyweight division, and make a mark internationally. The gold at Strandja, beating the Olympic silver medalist was a begin.
The 25-year-old had audaciously gone warring to stake declare to even be the challenger previous to the final Olympics, asking Mary Kom to fetch up for a trial. Having earned her place as a contender now with Mary stepping apart, and crucially Nikhat getting the wins underneath her belt, there’s now the beginning of the particular battle — on the worldwide degree, starting with the May World Championships. Someone’s stored her on the straight and slender of ‘Planet Athlete-hungry-for-success’ clearly, as a result of she holds herself again from a self-appraisal of 10/10 when quizzed about her footwork. “I wish to sound humble. So, chalo, theeke, 9/10 for footwork,” she chuckles in a mock-grudging tone.
Mary Kom danced when ducking and danced when dashing forth within the 51 kg ring, by means of her twinkling footwork. Nikhat reckons she’s not lead-footed in any respect, removed from it. But given there’s miles to go earlier than Paris comes alongside, she retains assessments conservative with loads of scope for enchancment: “Speed 7/10. Power in the punches 8/10.” Cumulative coolness from being a die-hard Salman Khan fan? 20/10. “Very big fan. Fan kya, AC samjho. I believe he hasn’t married yet, because he’s waiting for me,” she says in mock-grandiose tone, a bonafide pugilist, whose pre-punch, pre-jab is the pure bluster, uttered for impact.
Though not fairly the Dabangg-fan right here. “I used to be a big fan of his in Hum Saath-Saath Hain. That innocence on his face. Salman of ’90s,” says the Bhai-buff, though for someone born only in 1997, the movie mania in Nizamabad must’ve started much later. “I’m waiting for his new Tiger movie,” she reminds.
But first got here boxing in serendipitous methods, to the woman who began out as a sprinter.
EARLY DAYS
The 25-year-old had audaciously gone warring to stake declare to even be the challenger previous to the final Olympics, asking Mary Kom to fetch up for a trial. (File)
Nikhat’s father Mohd Jameel Ahmed is a true-blue Hyderabadi. That is, he is performed cricket elegantly, and prolonged his sports activities like to soccer and athletics, with no preconditions of magnificence in these. “He was into athletics, so I ran 100/200m. We had been watching Urban Games as soon as and I requested him why there have been no feminine boxers. He stated there are, however folks assume ‘ladkiyon mein dum ni hota’. I took that assertion as a problem. I wished to vary folks’s mentality that girls can do something,” she says.
But girls within the 51kg division in India needed to do extra — vault over a really excessive gate, plus its halo. Take down the legend, MC Mary Kom, and for Nikhat, there wasn’t weight fluidity to manoeuvre across the rock in that class (learn EDot). A tad out of her depth after they met for the hurriedly-called trials previous to Tokyo qualification meets, she could be packed off to bide her time, to up her sport after a little bit of a tactical licking.
“I needed to go home after that. Eat my mom’s food. Play with my nephews, nieces,” she recollects, of toddlers aged 4, 2 and seven 1/2 years. “I of course felt bad because the Olympics wouldn’t come for another 4 years (3). But I always believed there’s more to come. And maybe Tokyo wasn’t my destiny. I didn’t look back and moved on,” she provides.
Boxing has all the time been about “winning and learning” for Nikhat. In 2017, she tore her shoulder and forearm. “It was a bad case. I never imagined I could get such an injury. It hurt and took a year to heal. But I believe I got wiser and more mature after that injury. God wanted me to become mentally stronger,” she says.
Fleet-footed she could be, however there was and stays a lot about ring-craft that Nikhat is conscious she’ll must work on, to be spoken of in the identical breath as a number of World Champion, Mary Kom. “Experience was the big difference,” she avers when talking of the current semifinal in opposition to Turkish Buse Naz akıroğlu, the silver medallist from Tokyo.
“It was candy revenge as a result of I’d misplaced to her final 12 months in semis. I’d labored on my errors and knew what was her power, and had the technique to not let her play her sport,” she says.
At the Bosphorus Boxing Tournament in Istanbul final 12 months, Nikhat had crushed two-time world champion Nazym Kyzaibay of Kazakhstan, a day after packing off 2019 world champion Paltceva Ekaterina of Russia in pre-quarters. With gold medalist Stoyka Krasteva, in her late 30s, unlikely to be at Paris, a brand new crop awaits, outlines of which will probably be seen at Worlds and Asiad.
New chief girls’s coach Bhaskar Bhatt, was in Nikhat’s nook at Strandja. “I’d never worked with him at the elite level before. But he’s very hardworking and humble and gave me great support in that semifinal.” Nikhat had been very nervous, with recollections of final 12 months’s loss haunting her greater than the fame of the Tokyo medallist. “I wasn’t positive how I might really combat as soon as contained in the ring as a result of I’d misplaced final 12 months on a unanimous determination. He simply shook me by the shoulder, regarded me within the eyes and instructed me: ‘punch rukne nahi chahiye.’ He was so motivating, that I used to be pumped up.”
UPGRADES NEEDED
The humbly assessed 9/10 footwork and agility apart, Nikhat feels assured about her left and proper hooks — one thing she maxes along with her 163 cm body. Yet, tactically there’s a lot work to be achieved. “Of course, you have to always change things. It can’t be the same, because people read you,” she says. One of Mary Kom’s enduring talents even when the velocity flagged however she clung onto the spot gamely, was her anticipation of the opponent’s vary and when to go all in and when to parry from a distance. It got here from years of expertise and a canny mind.
Nikhat, not as pickled within the trickery but, understands she wants sheer selection to trump the wiles. “I want a sport that may confuse folks the place they are saying, ‘iska samajh ni aata (it is robust to learn her). I ought to have the ability to alternate between very defensive and a change in fashion in a fraction of seconds,” she reckons.
Nikhat makes use of her sprinting previous largely to assist make weight now. She’s moved properly previous the singular-tempo of blindly working shortly on the monitor — freely and ferociously. She’s studying to maintain her playing cards near her within the ring now — the ebullience, at instances an upbeat facade.
,
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
