Jyoti Gulia Boxing and Shining against her Father’s Wish

Journey of Flyweight boxer Jyoti Gulia in boxing is not as easy as of Geeta and Babita Phogat.  This is because the Phogat sisters had the support of their father, Mahavir Singh Phogat, whereas,  Jyoti’s father is strictly against her playing boxing. He believes it’s a men game;credit to his conservative thinking.Jyoti hails from Rurki, 15 km from Rohtak, Haryana.

Jyoti won the final of AIBA Women’s World Youth Boxing Championship on 26 November, 2017.

Jyoti was a good dancer and used to take the dance classes also but had to quit in between due to the opposition from her father who threatened to break her legs if she continued dancing. So she started taking training in her another interest, boxing.

Jyoti started taking training under her coach Sudhir Hooda who was also a sarpanh in the Rurki village she belongs to. She did not tell her father about the boxing training she was taking as she knew how conservative his father was. It was only in 2012 her father came to know about her playing boxing when Jyoti got selected in the state championship.

She would often go to attend the training session by telling her parents lie that she was going to study science projects at a friend’s house. She decided to take part in 2013 PYKKA nationals and for this had to tell her parents about her boxing interest. As expected, her father lost his cool and this is when her coach Sudhir Hooda intervened and promised she would leave boxing if did not win any gold.

But destiny had something different for her in the store.  She not only won two gold medals in the next two editions but became the national school champion in 46kg also. In this wasy she had won gold in the international event held at Serbia and Silver in Istanbul in the year 2013.

17 years old Jyoti reached the finals of AIBA Women’s final held on Sunday by defeating Ukrainian, Italian, Kazakh and Russian opponents. She fought hard with them before she could bag the gold in the final match.

Jyoti has been selected for the upcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympics Games.

Haryana is famous for low education rate of girls and the cases of female foeticide is more there. But this is also true that the state has produced a lot of sportsman especially in boxing and wrestling in the recent years.