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On the day of her opening bout at the Boxing World Championships, Mary Kom was nervous. She might be the biggest name here in Delhi, with giant posters featuring her image overlooking the ring at the Indira Gandhi stadium, and her fears would count for nothing as she eventually coasted to a points decision victory over Kazakhstan's Aigerim Kassenaeva. But when she got up on Sunday morning and prepared to fight, Mary Kom, the veteran of countless boxing battles over nearly two decades, felt the butterflies in her stomach as she chased an unprecedented sixth global gold. Mary Kom didn't have any of the bravado of a debutant like Manisha Moun, who was perfectly at ease before going on to beat reigning world champion Dina Zhalaman. Instead, Mary Kom's worries mirrored those of Lovlina Borgohain and Bhagyabati Kachari, who were overwhelmed with emotion on their World Championships debuts. "It was such a big opportunity and there are so many people who have come to see me," Kachari explains. A double-edged sword is how coach Rafael Bergamasco describes the experience. "On the one hand there is the advantage of playing at home and at the same time you don't want to disappoint people. When you are competing in your first World Championships, your stomach will be paining when you see such a big stadium." Mary Kom might not have had anything to prove, but try telling that to her. "Pressure hai. Bahut sare pressure hain (There is always a lot of pressure). Maybe I handle it better now. When I lost before I would get very upset. I would wonder what people would think about me. I always wondered whether I would be able to live up to their expectations. I wasn't able to handle that," she would say later. Mary Kom says the change has happened over the past six years. "I've been handling pressure well now. Over the last few years I'm seeing the experience differently. Now my life is about taking enjoyment in the boxing."  Which is why instead of brooding and overthinking what lay ahead, Mary Kom simply reverted to practise. She switched on her playlist of racy pop numbers and proceded to lose the last 500 grams of water in order to make the 48kg weight limit for the day's contest. Dropping the pound is therapeutic. "That's her routine now," says her coach Chhote Lal Yadav. "If she works up a sweat in the morning, she immediately becomes more focused. If she doesn't have to work out she gets a little lethargic." Her mind clearer, Mary Kom then got to the task of preparing for her opponent. The two had competed before at the Silesian Boxing Championships in Poland in September. Mary Kom had won a close bout then, but this time, her target was to leave no doubt on who was the better boxer. "This time Mary wanted to make sure that the Kazakh girl couldn't even land a single punch on her. She had to school her in the ring and that was what she did. She made sure to keep the pressure on her all the time and force her to commit and then score on the counter and then move away," says Yadav. That was precisely what she did. The contest was low on thrills but Mary Kom's punches were clear and decisive, getting her the win. Mary Kom was all smiles afterwards, but Yadav knew she was already thinking of how she could improve. "She isn't someone who is satisfied easily. She will probably be looking to box even better in the next round," he says. That contest in the quarterfinals will be against China's Yu Wu, a tricky tie to call considering the two have never fought each other. Mary Kom, however, is ready for that. She is also ready for the inevitable nerves. "We have to win more fights if we have to get the gold," she says. "There are more hardships we have to face."
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