Country India | ||
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Governing body Indian Boxing Federation National team [[India national team|India]] | ||
In India, the game of boxing does not command a significant fan following, which commentators often attribute to the lack of discernible international victories. However, despite its limited success at large global championships, it is a regular medal-holder at the Asian Games and Commonwealth Games,
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Notable boxers and boxing victories
Mohammad Ali Qamar became the first Indian to win a gold medal at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, United Kingdom.
At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Vijender Singh won a bronze medal in the middleweight boxing category, while Akhil Kumar and Jitender Kumar qualified for the quarterfinals. Akhil Kumar, Jitender Kumar, A.L. Lakra, and Dinesh Kumar each won a bronze medal at the 2008 World Championship.
Vijender Singh briefly reached World No.1 in the middle weight (75 kg) category class in 2009, when the International Boxing Association's (AIBA) list was updated after 2009 AIBA World Boxing Championships held in Milan, Where he won India's first medal in an AIBA-WBC. On 29 June 2015, Vijender Singh bid adieu to his amateur career by turning professional as he signed a multi-year agreement with Queensberry Promotions through IOS Sports and Entertainment. This ruled him out of 2016 Olympics as he no longer remains eligible to represent India.
India's Mary Kom is a five-time World Amateur Boxing champion, and the only woman boxer to have won a medal in each one of the six world championships. She also became the first Indian woman boxer to get a Gold Medal at the Asian Games during the 2014 Asian Games at Incheon, South Korea.
Five Indian boxers, three female and two male, were among the world’s top three in AIBA latest world rankings (March 1, 2014) in their respective categories. The rankings were as follows:
In December, 2014, Boxing India declared its 1st Elite Men's Nationals in Nagpur which were held from January 9 to 15, where boxers Satish Kumar, Manpreet Singh, Sumit Sangwan, Mrunal Bhosale won medals.
In popular culture
In 2014, Priyanka Chopra played the main role as Mary Kom in an award winning biographical film about her life. In 2016 a movie, starring R. Madhwan, 'sala khadoos' where his boxing student 'Madhi' wins the world light weight boxing champion.