With his ringside view of India’s Olympic boxers, Matthews is perhaps best placed to convey what it is that makes boxing and India’s fivesome so different and so intriguing. Best placed simply because he came to the sport and to the squad just a year ago, so he can still summon a sense of distance and the freshness of the newly conquered.
“Boxing appeals at a very primal level,” he says. “It has all the essential elements that appeal to you, at a slightly deeper level. It’s hand to hand combat. The action is bell to bell, you cannot back down for a second. Therefore, the kind of bravery this sport requires as a standard is different from other sports. Besides character and courage under fire, boxing requires the attributes of other sports too: fitness, agility, reflex. It needs a big heart.”
It has to do with the “ethos in boxing”, says Matthews, watching athletes at the Olympic village race to the souvenir store as the date of departure nears. “Boxing has a code of conduct. You conduct yourself in a specific way.”
Take the five boxers here, he says: “They feed off of each other. Heaps of times they have been down. They motivate each other. It’s the kind of sport in which you get weeded out of the system if you don’t have a big heart. Boxers are surprisingly sensitive people, caring, compassionate. It’s a different brotherhood. Whatever cost to self, they will help their friends.”
For instance, he adds, look at Akhil. “If Jeetu or one of the others needs him, he will drop everything. These guys can’t be selfish. It’s what I call the old school. This is why they are still very grounded, very down to earth. They won’t get carried away.”
... contd.
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Mini Kapoor