Tokyo-bound Mary Kom gets her first COVID-19 vaccine
Fellow Olympics-bound boxer Lovlina Borgohain has also received her first dose of the COVID jab.
London Olympics medallist and Indian boxing legend Mary Kom received her first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at a hospital in Pune on Wednesday.
Along with Mary Kom, fellow Tokyo-bound boxer Lovlina Borgohain and four members from the coaching and support staff team have also been inoculated.
The two Tokyo-bound boxers are training at the Army Sports Institute in the city with the camp scheduled to go on till the end of July.
Mary Kom, a six-time world champion, has been training at the institute since last week. She is, however, without her personal coach Chhote Lal Yadav, who couldn’t travel after testing positive for COVID.
Four Indian women boxers have qualified for the Tokyo Olympics. Simranjit Kaur (60kg) will join the Pune camp once she completes her recovery from the novel coronavirus. Pooja Rani (75kg), however, will continue her training at Bellary's Inspire Institute of Sports.
Barring Simranjit Kaur, the Indian women boxers will be in action at the upcoming Asian boxing championships in Dubai, starting May 21.
The vaccination comes in the wake of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic that is currently ravaging India. Positive cases in the country have crossed the 300,000-mark daily since April 20.
Last month, 21 members of the women’s boxing camp in New Delhi, including high performance director Raffaele Bergamasco, tested positive for COVID-19 at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium.
Several other Indian athletes, including those Tokyo-bound, have also tested positive since last month. They include race walker
Priyanka Goswami and shooter Apurvi Chandela among others.