Boxer Mary Kom at Coal India Marathon 2025 event at Birsa
Munda Football Stadium in Ranchi, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025. (PTI Photo)
- NEW DELHI — The Indian Olympic Association's athletes commission chairperson
and boxing legend M C Mary Kom on Tuesday denied reports that she has resigned
from her position, insisting that she has been misunderstood and will complete
her tenure in the panel.
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- The 42-year-old Manipuri, who is also a 2012 Olympics
bronze-winner, had travelled to Haldwani for the National Games closing
ceremony last week where she expressed her displeasure over being lodged at an
"inferior hotel".
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- Speaking to PTI, Mary Kom said her outburst in a private
WhatsApp group was misconstrued and leaked to the media as resignation.
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- "I have not resigned, I will complete my tenure
(which ends in 2026)," she asserted.
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- "I was merely telling my fellow (athletes
commission) members that if this kind of treatment happens again, I will
consider resigning. I never said that I am resigning. IOA is my family and if I
am unhappy over something, I have every right to express it.
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- "This does not mean that I am resigning," she
went on.
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- Mary Kom was elected to the panel in 2022 with table
tennis stalwart A Sharath Kamal as vice-chairperson.
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- "Whoever has leaked the private conversation in the
WhatsApp group of Athletes Commission has not done the right thing. I don't
know who has done it. I am hurt but I want to close this matter because IOA is
my family," she later said at the IOA Bhawan here.
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- "I have no ill feelings towards anybody who has
leaked the conversation but I want the IOA and the sports ministry to find out
who has leaked it. I want to serve the country's sport and don't want a
controversy which I had not created," she added.
