Mary Kom’s final attempt at the Olympic win came to an end as she lost to Colombian Ingrit Valencia in a 2:3 split decision during the women’s flyweight category at the Tokyo Olympics. She apologised to India for not being able to clinch a medal in the Games.

Kom said, “I could not give back to the people who prayed for me, wished me luck and supported me in this campaign. I had promised Rijiju sir, I will at least get a medal, if not the gold. I wanted to give him a return gift of sort, but that is not possible now. It cannot be fulfilled, winning the medal for the country. I am thankful and grateful to all the fans and I want to tell them that keep supporting all our boxers in Tokyo. I want to apologise to India for not winning an Olympics medal.”

The 38-year-old boxing champion was allegedly mentally harassed before her bout and claimed she was treated with indifference. Mary Kom, surprisingly, came to know about her defeat 10 minutes after the bout via a tweet from Kiren Rijeju.

“Just 10 seconds before my bout I was asked to change my jersey by officials who I am guessing were from the IOC. I argued over this a bit, but my fight was about to begin and was running out of time,” She told News 18. The Indian boxer further added, “They gave us a different T-shirt saying this what I will have to wear or else I cannot go out there. My coaches also tried to reason, but we did not have the time to argue. I thought it will be better to follow what there are saying, and get on with the match. At that time I did feel they were trying to harass me mentally just before my bout.”

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Mary Kom revealed that this was the first time she had faced such poor judgement as the judges ruled out in favour of her opponent, despite barely landing punches on each other. “After the 1st round, the score was 1-4 in favour of the other opponent and I could not believe it, as we did get into a proper fight. I could not understand it. Yet, in the next two rounds, I gave my best and I thought I had it won. But, I still don’t understand how I could not win. I felt so bad when I realised it, and this is the first time,” she said.

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This marked her final appearance at the Olympics as participants over 40 are not eligible to compete in the games.