BHIWANI BOXING CLUB 

                  SMALL TOWN, BIG DREAMS

     Bhiwani used to be one of many towns in northern India, undeveloped, paved in dust, with mud roads and plenty of potholes. 150kms west of capital city Delhi, it figured little on the tourist and media radar. But now, after the Beijing Olympics, Bhiwani is hogging the spotlight. Four of the five boxers sent to compete at the Summer Olympics 2008, were Bhiwani boys and three of them made it to the quarter-finals. Vijender Kumar bagged bronze, while the other two Akhil and Jitender Kumar were proud quater-finalists. For small town boys, this was a grand leap. Not that they are strangers to the jubilation of winning. Vijender Kumar is also a Doha Asian games medalist, while Dilbagh Singh and Jitender triumphed at the Asian Meet earlier on.

     So what is it about this little town that it spawns so many winners in the boxing arena? As far as training facilities go, they couldn't be more modest. The Bhiwani Boxing Club (BBC) in the Sports Authority of India (SAI) Campus, has a mere two boxing rings and a handful of punching bags. Paint is peeling off the discolored walls and drinking water needs to be hand-pumped out of the earth. Most boxers do not have their own gloves; many have torn gloves. Undoubtedly it's their passion for boxing fanned under the tutelage of their dynamic coach and pugilist Jagdish Singh that offsets the lack of a sophisticated training setup to churn out a steady stream of winners.

     In August 2008, the Deputy Commissioner of Bhiwani announced that the Club will receive a hi-tech facelift, modeled after the Australian Institute of Sports. These photographs were taken in 2008, after the Beijing games.

Text: Shivashakthi