Niharika Gonella served another reminder of her growing stature in the boxing ring when she clinched a creditable silver (80 kg) in the AIBA Nations Cup Championship in Serbia.
For the record, she won a silver on her maiden international event in the AIBA Women’s Junior and Youth Boxing Championship held in Taiwan last May, and is now training under I. Venkateswara Rao at the SAI Centre in Vizag.
This gifted boxer, whom the critics rate very high because of her composure under pressure and the ability to come up with big punches when it matters the most, has been in the news for all the right reasons for quite some time.
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Niharika drifted into gymnastics, handball, volleyball before being coaxed into boxing by Venkateshwara Rao. That proved to be the decisive moment in her career as this 16-year-old boxer is now being tipped as one of the best young talent in women’s boxing in India within two years of taking up the sport.
“Being in the national camp at SAI in Vizag is a huge learning curve. We tend to pick so many new aspects of training by merely watching some of the best boxers around,” says Niharika.
Significantly, even as Niharika is knocking her opponents with ease in the ring, she is yet to get the cash incentives she is due for winning national and international medals from the State government.
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Interestingly, Niharika (whose elder sister Gonella Naganika is also a boxer) idolises another young boxing champion from Nizamabad, Nikhat Zareen and believes that this is a discipline which can provide a platform where you can prove your mettle unlike a team event where even the best of efforts may not be good enough.
“Boxing is all about your individual ability. It is not just knocking out your opponent with raw power, but also involves a lot of technique and skills. And I have a dream to chase – win as many international medals and then represent India in Olympics,” says the articulate boxer.