Lovlina Borgohain — Remember the Champion at Tokyo?
Olympics stories usually have two buckets. For the developed and upper-middle-income countries, it is the celebration of collective success, the medal tally, the culture of the sports, and the institutional support. Individual stories also are shared, but the dominant narrative is that of the nation.
The other stories are that of the large majority of the countries, who rank way low in the medals tally or don’t even rank at all. Here the story is not so much of a concerted, national effort spreading over decades, but rather stories of individual heroics.
In the 2024 Paris Olympics, one such story was that of Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan. Last Olympics we similarly heard about the struggles of Neeraj Chopra.
These stories take the limelight because the people here have reached the pinnacle. But I am sure that if we look under the hood of each of the Indian participants in the elite sports, similar tales will come out.
One such is that of Lovlina Borgohain, who won a Bronze in boxing at the Tokyo Olympics. This time she was in the Quarter Finals — imagine being the last eight for a world of eight billion. That is one in a billion. But do we know her story? It’s another one of what grit and determination can do to convert challenges into super success.
If we start from Delhi, one needs to take a flight from Delhi to Kolkata, Kolkata to Dimapur, and then travel 6km by road. This is Baromukhia, the village 322 km West of Guwahati where grew up. The last three km of the road was not motorable even a few days back, but now with her Bronze medal in Tokyo, all has been taken care of.
Ahom by birth (the tribe that ruled Assam), Lovlina is the youngest of the three sisters. Even in the socially progressive state of Assam, the family faced some taunts, especially given father was mostly away from work.
However, parents Tiken and Mamoni Borgohain had been supportive of sports even with their modest means (Tiken is a small tree plantation owner). The elder sisters Licha and Lima competed at the national level of kickboxing.
Loveline too took the same path. But she was a 14-year-old Muay Thai (a martial art from Thailand) practitioner in 2012 when she was first spotted by a boxing coach Padum Chandra Bodo from the Sports Authority of India (SAI).
At five feet ten inches, Lovlina had always been very tall among kids around her. And had very few friends. But the focus was always to be the best, despite the financial constraints.
Two months into the training at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) camp at Patiala, Lovlina still lacked the money to buy a red corner kit (an assortment of boxer kits including a pair of gloves, all in red). She traded her phone (the only way to connect back home) to another contestant who lost and was leaving (the kit did not come, unfortunately, and the phone was gone).
Last year Lovlina was busy treating the kidney transplant of a mother a Kolkata and spent the entire Arjuna award money for the same. Then she had COVID, missed a 52-day training program, and also had a leg injury. And given the lockdown restrictions, even her kits did not arrive.
So just a year before the Olympics she was sick, isolated from training, lacking equipment, and fighting for the life of her mother. She even trained with LPG cylinders in hotel rooms to keep fit.
Sandhya Gurung, Lovlina’s coach from Sikkim fought paralysis and being bedridden for three years before becoming a national champion herself and inculcated the same spirit in Lovlina.
Lovlina lost in the semi-final to Turkey’s Busenaz Sürmeneli who is also the world champion (and went on to win gold). They never fought before, so there was no way to know the techniques.
But Lovlina Borgohain has already discussed winning gold in the 2024 Paris Olympics. And also, to continue to work on the paddy fields to remain rooted to the basics.
The gold did not happen, but I am sure the farming is on. And I am sure, we will see more of her in the future.
The question is, will we remember our joy of Tokyo, and be with her? Hopefully yes.
