Goa has boxing talent
This Olympics-related news item will come as a knock out punch to many. Everyone knows Goans and football, like xit-koddi or 15 August and patodeo go together, they’re a team. Goans are also often spoken of in the same breath when it comes to hockey, many of them having won Olympic gold medals for India as part of the national Olympic hockey team. But Goans and women’s boxing? Yes, we do have a budding and very talented woman boxer – Siona Fernandes, and she’s a part of the New Zealand Olympic boxing team.
Read the article below for more details. And don’t forget to watch the Olympic boxing events and cheer for her when she dons the gloves for her first bout tomorrow – Sunday, 5 August. Our very own M. C. Mary Kom, five time world champion, will also open her campaign tomorrow. She has a tough draw, and not just that, she has been forced to train without her regular coach, Charles Atkinson, on some technical grounds. So let’s wish her luck too. What can we say to these two stars boxing in London tomorrow, except… Atta girl! Go for it!
Article Source: Yahoo Sport – Robert Lowe, AAP August 4, 2012
Siona Fernandes: Boxing in London
Few CVs would contain the twin entries of classical dancer and international boxer.
The one belonging to Siona Fernandes does, and she sees no contradiction in being an exponent of both a creative art and a destructive skill.
The holder of a master’s degree in psychology, Fernandes admits she never thought for a minute during her training in Indian classical dance that she would one day make the New Zealand Olympic boxing team.
“One minute is too long to imagine that,” she said. “Not for a second, no.”
But there are common threads in the two disciplines, and they’ve help her get to the London Games just two years after taking up amateur boxing.
She points to the importance in both of footwork, balance, co-ordination and focus.
“In classical dancing you don’t have any beats – you create the beat with footwork,” she said.
“There is a lot of agility, speed and power with the legs, and boxing is a lot of power with the legs , so it does transfer big time.”
She has, of course, studied the boxing ballet of the greatest of them all, Muhammad Ali and the famed Ali shuffle.
“Yes, you do have to float like a butterfly.”
Fernandes, 29, arrived in New Zealand from Goa, on India’s west coast, five years ago.
Her interest in boxing was piqued when she wandered past a gym and saw people punching bags.
“I thought I mightn’t be very good but I’ll give it a go,” she said.
“I ended up punching the bag harder than anybody, and it was like, ‘what’s up with this chick?'”
Along with teammate Alexis Pritchard, another who adopted New Zealand as her home, Fernandes will be part of history when she steps in the ring.
Both are in action on Sunday, when women’s boxing makes its debut as an Olympic sport. Fernandes faces Bulgaria’s Stoyka Petrova in the flyweight (48-51kg) division, while South African-born Pritchard, 27, meets Tunisian Rim Jouini in the lightweight (57-60kg) class.
Cheers!
