CHANDIGARH: City boy Rohit Chamoli landed the perfect punches on Mongolia's Otgonbayar Tuvshinzaya in the final of the junior boys' 48kg bout to clinch gold medal at the ASBC Asian Youth and Junior Boxing championships in Dubai on Sunday, continuing his impressive form in the prestigious continental event. Rohit had bagged gold medals in Chandigarh State Junior Boxing championships and junior National Championships in Sonipat.
Born to a cook at a private hotel in the city, Rohit was inspired by his cousin Meenakshi to take up the sport under the watchful eyes of Joginder Singh, assistant sub-inspector of Punjab Police, at Butterfly Park, near Sector 3, in Chandigarh.
"I have been training young boxers from the underprivileged sections for 12 years now. Meenakshi was one of them. She is now with ITBP. Rohit was around 10 or 11 years old when I met him first in 2017. He had a good technique and was quite impressive from the beginning," Singh told TOI.
Singh said Rohit had initially taken up the sport to escape his studies but gradually developed interest. But like any lower middle class family, his father was more interested in his studies, and got him out of his training after a month or so.
It required more than a month or two for Singh to convince Rohit's father that he will sponsor his studies till Class X but on the condition that his boxing training needed to be continued.
"After a lot of coaxing, his father eventually agreed to send Rohit, and from then there was no looking back. I have seen his gradual growth from an ordinary boxer to a champion, he has proved himself at the state level, at the national level, where he outpunched quality boxers from Haryana and Uttarakhand and now at international stage," Singh said.
Singh, who has three inter-university gold medals in 1991, 1992 and 1993, said his only wish is to guide his wards to accomplish his unfulfilled dream of making it to the India camp. He competed at the nationals but regrets returning empty handed.
"In the past decade, I always saved a part of my monthly salary for these young children to buy equipment for them, but what I couldn't afford was a proper diet. There was no support from any official or politician. Interestingly, the Haryana CM's quarter is hardly a stone's throw from where we train, and also the quarters of many of the state's MLA's. Once in a while, a senior bureaucrat would pat my back and that's all the support I have got," he said.
"My only dream is to get these kids to a certain level which I couldn't reach, I want them to make it to the national camp, a dream which remained unfulfilled in my career," he added.
On Rohit, Singh has high expectations, "Yeh proper guidance se 200% Olympics jaa sakta hai. I know it is too early, but I want him to stay focused after this gold medal. This is just a trailer." After making a cautious start, Rohit's timely and precise punches gave him edge over his Mongolian opponent in a close-fought match as the Indian managed to secure a 3-2 win as well as the yellow metal.
The gold medallists in the junior category will be awarded with USD 4,000 while USD 2,000 and 1,000 will be given to the silver and bronze medal winners. The ongoing championships provided the much-needed competitive tournament to the promising young talents at the Asian level after a gap of almost two years lost due to pandemic.
The event witnessed a thrilling action in the presence of pugilists from strong boxing nations like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to name a few. It is also the first time that both the age groups-junior and youth-were played together.
