Sawt Falasteen - 'For my family': India boxer beats hardship, injury to go for Games gold

"I will win a medal for my family," the light middleweight told AFP after scoring a unanimous decision with a dominant display against the experienced Thai Bunjong Sinsiri on Monday.

"I will go for gold," added the confident, hard-hitting Sumit, who is an imposing presence having dropped down from his usual 75kg class for the Commonwealth and Asian Games this year.

It was the opening day of boxing at the Nishio Gymnasium in Japan's Aichi prefecture. But it was a day that Sumit, who was making his Games debut, thought might never come.

Now he is into the last 16 in the 70kg weight category where he will face Iraq's Ali Qasim Hamdan Al-Sarray on Thursday.

"It felt good," he said of his first win.

"The strategy devised by our coaches worked and I did well."

The 23-year-old from a small village in India's northern Haryana state has suffered more than his fair share of hardship just to get to Japan.

He took up boxing around the age of 10 but when his father died suddenly, his mother had to take up more jobs, including tailoring at odd hours during the night.

It was tough and she could only provide one meal a day for the family, so Sumit hung up his gloves to work as a school security guard to help make ends meet.

But his mother, brothers and village elders rallied around him and urged the teenager to go back to boxing.

"My family and friends supported me in my training and everything," Sumit said.

"Whatever I am it's because of my parents."

He was soon making a name for himself, winning gold medals at the 2018 National School Games and 2019 Khelo India Games.

- 'Return victorious' -

He was selected for the 2021 World Championship, where as an 18-year-old he reached the quarter-finals, a deep run that had many marking him out as a future champion.

He followed it up with a gold medal at the Thailand Open and a bronze at the 2022 Asian Elite Boxing Championships, where he reached the semi-finals.

But disaster struck in 2023 when an anterior cruciate ligament injury and meniscus tear in his knee left him fearing his career was over before it had hardly begun.

The injuries caused him to miss out on his Olympic dream at Paris 2024.

After knee surgery he spent 18 months in rehab in Mumbai and was close at times to throwing in the towel.

Again, it was his family who motivated him to fight back.

Asked by AFP if he had thought his career was over, he admitted: "That thought did creep into my mind.

"But, as I said, my family, my brother and my friends helped me and convinced me to carry on and motivated me."

He returned in 2025, after being barely able to walk 18 months earlier, and fought his way onto the Asian Games squad by winning India's trials.

Now his country is expecting him to fulfil all that promise and deliver. This time he says there will be no stopping him.

"I will win a medal at the Asian Games," he said. "And return victorious to my family."

K.AbuDahab--SF-PST