“Right now, there aren’t many butterflies,” says Nikhat Zareen, mindful that before she steps inside the ring in Paris, she might have to indulge in a bout with the nerves when the Olympics come closer.
She’s only heard of the anxieties and pressures that come as a package with the Olympics but never experienced the feeling before. This will be the two-time world champion boxer’s first jab at the Games.
In just under 100 days, she’ll make her Olympics debut. A symbolic mark that is a reminder that the world’s biggest sporting festival is still some time away but at the same time, not too far either.
By the time she reaches Paris from her training base in Patiala – via Sofia, Montenegro, Kastamonu, Bangkok, and Saarbrucken – Nikhat would have raked up the air miles and travelled close to 22,000 km.
These are the places she’s visited in the last few months and will travel to in the next few weeks to test her limits, gain competition experience, and gather the slightest of intel on her opponents. All of which she hopes will help in reaching her ultimate destination: the Olympic podium.
In a way, this is a good time to be an athlete in India. It’s still far from perfect but at least things aren’t as bleak and systems aren’t as inefficient as they were until a decade-and-a-half ago.
Nikhat Zareen with Buse Naz Cakiroglu, whom she calls her ‘biggest challenge’ for the Paris Olympics, and the Turkish boxer’s coach Nazim Yigit during a training camp in Kastamonu, Turkey, earlier this month. Credit: Nikhat Zareen/Instagram
Abhinav Bindra, in his best-selling autobiography with writer Rohit Brijnath, wrote dolefully about his meeting with the Sports Ministry in 2006. He had gone to request ‘funding for training through the National Sports Development Fund.’
”It was the year I had won the World Championship. Yet I walked out of the meeting completely disillusioned. Every request for funds for coaching, for equipment, for training was questioned,” the Beijing Olympics gold medallist wrote.
Those days are now passé. Today, an elite athlete – especially those covered under the Target Olympic Podium Scheme and supported by private entities like OGQ and JSW Sports – simply has to raise a request and, in most cases, it’s cleared with no questions asked. The tables have turned such that the burden of accountability, it is argued, is now as much on the athlete as the babus.
And so, as the Olympic preparations enter the home stretch, nearly two dozen medal hopefuls have made – or will make – some of the remotest corners of the world their launchpads.
Their paths to Paris can be traced to the mountains of Dagestan to the jungles of Kastamonu, the still waters of Chunan to the beach-side Australian city of Gold Coast, the secluded German village of Bergedorf to the party town that’s Bangkok.
Some, like Neeraj Chopra, pack their belongings and spend months together away from their family and friends to, among other reasons, avoid distractions. A few, like steeplechaser Avinash Sable, move out for better, cleaner air while shooters, like Asian Games champion Esha Singh, will spend weeks in Tuscany to find the right ammo for her pistol.
And then, some travel to foreign lands in search of a good sparring partner. Like Nikhat.
“Kastamonu is a small city. The training centre is in the middle of a jungle. Everywhere, just dense trees. Ekdum sukoon bhara mahaul (It was peaceful).”
Nikhat paints a vivid picture of the city in Turkey’s western Black Sea region where she camped for a fortnight this month. It wasn’t nature that lured her, however. Nikhat’s reason for travelling was singular: Buse Naz Cakiroglu.
“I find her the biggest challenge,” Nikhat says of the Turkish boxer. “I boxed with her in the 2022 Strandja Memorial. I faced her in the semifinals and won by a 4-1 decision. I hadn’t competed or sparred with her since then. So, before the Olympics, I wanted to do that and see what’s changed in her game.”
A lot, result-wise. In the last few years, Nikhat and Buse Naz have lorded over the flyweight and light-flyweight categories.
In 2019 – when Nikhat was yet to completely emerge from Mary Kom’s shadows – Buse Naz won a silver at the World Championships. When normalcy returned after the pandemic years and the Championships were held again in 2022, Nikhat became the 51kg world champion while Buse Naz upgraded her silver from three years ago to win the gold in 50kg.
The following year, Nikhat dropped to 50kg to meet the Olympics criteria and made a smooth transition, winning the world title last year. In Paris, the fight for the top prize could well be between the last two world champions. And Nikhat did not want to leave anything to chance.
Not many athletes would be willing to travel to the home of their biggest rival and train with them just before the Olympics. To Nikhat, that didn’t seem to matter. Analysing her competitor’s boxing style by watching videos is one thing, she says, and actually stepping into the ring and figuring out her game is entirely different.
The sparring sessions between the two friends were also a game of cat and mouse, with neither willing to put all their cards on the deck.
“Honestly, she was preparing for the European Championship so she was in full form,” Nikhat says. “I don’t have any important championships to look forward to so I was there just to train. No boxer shows her 100% game in sparring. ‘A’ game side mein rakh ke, ‘B’ game koshish karte hai (We hide our ‘A’ game, try to work on the ‘B’ game).”
Nikhat Zareen. (Instagram)
“For example,” Nikhat continues, “if I am good at playing from a distance, like counter-boxing, then I will try to move forward and box (while sparring). If it works, then I have another plan. If I had won via split decision by adopting a counter-boxing style last time, then I’d step forward and attack if it is to my advantage. I’ll keep that in my mind and use it in the ring. The same goes for her also.”
Nikhat provides a glimpse into her street-smart, cunning boxing brain. These little tips and tricks, she knows, could well be the difference between an Olympic medal and returning empty-handed.
All of this – the glamour of travel, the grind of training – comes at a price. No social life – ‘Boring he chalta hai,’ says Nikhat (It’s all boring) – and staying away from the family, even during festivals.
Next month, after she returns from a training stint in Bangkok, Nikhat will make a brief visit home. It will be the last time she will meet her family before the Olympics.
“Na hum idhar ke rahe, na udhar ke,” she says, adding that the long journey back from Kastamonu to Delhi on the day of Eid meant she couldn’t join her family for the celebrations.
“It might not be in my destiny to celebrate Eid at home this year. My entire family was there. I was happy to see everyone together but I was also missing them,” she says, ruefully.
She goes from sounding upset to upbeat in a fraction of a second, reminded of a larger cause that has led to this life of sacrifice. “I believe better things are waiting for me. Next year, I’ll celebrate Eid with an Olympic medal, inshallah.”
