Olympic breakthrough: When Vijender Singh battled to boxing glory in Beijing

Nothing succeeds like success.

It wasn’t till Vijender Singh saw Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore on the Olympic podium in Athens 2004 that he understood how privileged he was to be an Olympian. An inexperienced, wide-eyed teenager hoping to soak in the atmosphere in Athens, Vijender transformed into a serious contender for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing four years later to help India bag its first medal in boxing.

“It's an amazing feeling to represent your country at the Olympics and for me 2004 was a lot like that as I was happy and satisfied being present there, witnessing the opening ceremony and watching the contingents from other countries; inspecting the villages and enjoying the food and atmosphere,” Vijender recalled during lockdown chat show ‘In the Sportlight’ last year.

In 2004, aged 18, Vijender had lost to Turkey’s Mustafa Karagollu in the first round in the welterweight division.

“But it was only when I saw the medal ceremony and saw Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore winning the silver medal is when the urge of winning a medal hit me too and the realisation that more than participation, it's winning the medal that matters.”

Indian boxing was gathering momentum going into the Beijing Games. Vijender had won a silver at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, when India returned with a medal haul of five that included Akhil Kumar’s gold in bantamweight. He had stepped up to the middleweight division by the 2006 Asian Games in December. In Doha, he won the bronze and was one of the two medalists for India.

A few months before Beijing 2008, Vijender Singh defeated Kazakhstan’s Bakhtiyar Artayev, the reigning Olympic champion then, 12-7 in President’s Cup to fire a warning shot.

“I just want to say that Indian boxers are no longer a weak lot; all are doing well at the international level,” Vijender said in an interview with Rediff.com in 2008, ahead of the Olympics. “Our boxing graph is going up all the time and the rest of the world is now scared to face Indian boxers.”

Four Indian men – women’s boxing made its Olympic debut in London in 2012—qualified for the Beijing Games. Three of them made it to the last eight. Akhil Kumar, with his open stance and undisguised aggression, was the leader of the pack. But he fell in the quarterfinals, one step away from a podium finish. As did Jitender Kumar in the flyweight division.

Vijender, with a more pragmatic boxing style, kept the Indian flag flying. After comprehensive wins in the first two bouts, he took on Ecuador’s Carlos Gongora in the quarterfinals.

“We were in the changing room with our coach GS Sandhu. He was tensed and said we have won two medals. Abhinav Bindra had won the gold medal and in wrestling also we won a medal (through Sushil Kumar),” the Indian boxer said during a show called Agenda Aajtak in 2019.

“The coach said that if we don't win a medal here, it's going to be insulting when we go back to India.” Vijender assured him he would get the medal.

The Indian carried that confidence into his quarterfinal bout. Vijender’s left jabs and upper cuts proved too hot to handle for Gongora, who was forced to play catch-up the whole time. Despite the Ecuadorian fighting hard to bridge the gap in the final round, the quick-footed Vijender raced to a 9-4 win.

It assured India its first medal in boxing, as both the losing semi-finalists win a bronze. The Indian had to settle for that as he went down 5-8 in the final-four clash against Emilio Correa.

Vijender failed to replicate the form at the London Olympics in 2012 and had moved on to professional boxing by the time Rio Olympics came around.

But his Beijing medal gave Indian boxing just the lift it required at the time. In London, MC Mary Kom doubled India’s medal count by winning a bronze medal in the women’s flyweight division. Nine boxers, five men four women– the most India has ever fielded at an Olympics -- have qualified for Tokyo 2020.