Amit Phangal's Journey From Practicing With Borrowed Gloves To World Championship Silver Is Nothing Short Of Inspiring
He is the first Indian male boxer to win a silver at worlds.
When Amit Phangal lost in the World Boxing Championship final, he had just missed out on a historic gold. But the silver was no mean achievement either. After all, no Indian male boxer had made it to the final before this and he had reason to be proud. Of course the whole nation would have loved a gold, but had to settle for second best. Be as it may, Amit's success is not a fluke but the result of hard work and struggle that has brought him this far.
That journey has not been easy for him. But the lad from Rohtak has fought against every adversity life has thrown at him. So much so, he is now a medal prospect for the 2020 Olympics. The one man who was there for him was his brother Ajay. Ajay gave up on his own boxing career to help Amit prosper. Amit admits that it was his brother's dream to see him do well in the ring.
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Ajay himself boxed till the national level before giving it all up to support Amit. Their family was not financially strong at that point and struggled to make ends meet. Both brothers wanted to be boxers so no wonder that Amit followed Ajay's footsteps.
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He recalled how he used to train borrowing gloves and used to lie at his house saying that he was going out with friends when in reality he would practice. Ajay knew that money was the need of the hour, so he made it into the army. He told Amit never to give up and supported him at all times.
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Money came for the diet and equipment and now Amit was able to focus on boxing. To this day he thanks his brother for joining the Indian Army for his sake. Now it is beginning to pay dividends.
But even before this historic silver, Amit did have some prestigious international medals to his name. He won gold both in the 2018 Commonwealth and Asian Games. Not to mention a bronze (2017) and silver (2019) at the Asian Championships.
His next target is to make it to the Olympics and already he is being hailed as a medal contender. Do not be surprised if he has a podium finish in Tokyo. He has made it this far, no reason why he cannot go further. The journey so far has been inspiring. Now it is interesting to see what follows.
