Mary Kom
Mangte Chungneijang "Mary" Kom (born 24 November 1982) is an Indian
Olympic boxer, politician, and former
Member of Rajya Sabha. She is the only woman to win the
World Amateur Boxing Championship six times, the only female boxer to have won a medal in each one of the first seven World Championships, and the only boxer (male or female) to win eight World Championship medals. Nicknamed ''Magnificent Mary'', she was the only Indian female boxer to have qualified for the
2012 Summer Olympics, where she competed in the flyweight (51 kg) category and won a bronze medal. She had also been ranked as the world's No. 1 female light-flyweight by the
International Boxing Association (amateur) (AIBA). She became the first Indian female boxer to win a gold medal in the
Asian Games in 2014 at
Incheon, South Korea and is the first Indian female boxer to win gold at the
2018 Commonwealth Games. She is also the only boxer to become
Asian Amateur Boxing Champion for a record six times. Mary Kom won the 51kg gold in President's Cup in Indonesia.
On 25 April 2016, the
President of India nominated Kom as a member of the
Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the
Indian parliament. In March 2017, the
Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India, appointed Mary Kom along with
Akhil Kumar as national observers for boxing.
After her sixth world title in 2018, the Government of Manipur conferred on her the title "Meethoi Leima", loosely translated as ''great or exceptional lady'' in a felicitation ceremony held in Imphal on 11 December 2018. Mary Kom became the most successful boxer at world championships in 2019. At the function, the then
Chief Minister of Manipur also declared that the stretch of road leading to the National Games village in
Imphal West district, where Kom currently resides, would be named as ''MC Mary Kom Road''. She was awarded the
Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award, in 2020.
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