COVID-19 Positive Simranjit Kaur Dropped From Team For Asian Boxing Championships

COVID-19 positive Simranjit Kaur has been dropped from the India squad for the Asian Boxing Championships. The championship is to be held in Dubai from May 21.

The national champion Simranjit Kaur tested positive for COVID-19 last week and is still recovering. The Boxing Federation of India (BFI) official said that “Since she is still in quarantine… it wouldn’t be possible for her to compete in the continental competition.”

The official added that they would check to see if the second boxer in the 60kg category (Kaur’s category) is fit for the competition. National selection trials in the women’s category were conducted by the BFI last month. The selection trials were conducted at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Sports Complex.

Kaur is among four Indian female boxers that qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The other three women to qualify are Lovlina Borgohain, Pooja Rani, and the six-time world champion MC Mary Kom. The Asian Boxing Championships was supposed to be held at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Sports Complex but got shifted to Dubai since New Delhi is facing a lockdown. The Sports Authority of India (SAI) closed all of the national camps in New Delhi due to the spike in COVID-19 cases.

Simranjit Kaur is a boxer that has been representing India internationally since 2011. At the 6th Junior Women National Boxing Championship in 2011, she won a bronze medal. The next year she won a silver medal at the 8th Junior Women National Boxing Championship. At the 2018 AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships she won a bronze medal. She was also a part of the Indian women’s boxing squad at the Ahmet Comert International Boxing Tournament and won a gold medal in the 64kg category. In 2019, Kaur won a gold medal at the 23rd President’s Cup International Boxing Tournament held in Indonesia. In March 2020, she qualified for the Tokyo Olympics after winning a silver medal at the Asian boxing Olympic qualifiers.