Olympics: Mary Kom forced to train alone after coach denied accreditation

One of India’s big medal hopes, MC Mary Kom has been forced to train on her own in Liverpool after her coach Charles Atkinson wasn’t granted accreditation for the Olympics, reports Mirror. Instead, the five-time world boxing champion has been asked to train with the women’s team coach Anoop Kumar during the course of the Olympics. What is important to note is that the two never worked together throughout Mary’s preparation for the Games. Also, when there’s no other woman pugilist in fray at the Games, then why couldn’t Mary be given the option of training with a coach of her choice? [caption id=“attachment_399870” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Is this the way to treat one of your medal hopefuls? Reuters[/caption] Naturally, the 29-year-old Mary is upset over the incident but hasn’t been able to persuade officials to have her coach ringside with whom she has trained for almost a year. Currently, Mary Kom is in Atkinson’s hometown (Liverpool) training with him. She will return to London by herself on 2 August, three days before her bout with Poland’s Karolina Lichalcvuk. “I could not get an accreditation for the Olympic village because there are apparently a limited number of spots. We are disappointed, both Mary and I. But we can’t hold any hard feelings,” Mirror quoted Atkinson as saying. Mirror quoted PK Muralidhar Raja, secretary of the Indian Boxing Federation and the Chef de Mission of the Indian contingent in London, as saying: “Mary wanted Atkinson but she hasn’t really worked with him for that long. Anoop is officially the women’s team coach. He had to be there ahead of Atkinson." Read the entire Mirror report here.