Jaismine Lamboria: The Indian Army’s first woman boxer is now chasing Commonwealth gold

Born in the northern state of Haryana, she grew up in Bhiwani, a city synonymous with Indian boxing and widely nicknamed the country’s ‘Mini Cuba’.

Her great-grandfather Hawa Singh was one of Indian boxing’s early giants. A heavyweight, he won successive Asian Games gold medals in 1966 and 1970 and was among those who established the famed Bhiwani Boxing Club, which would later produce boxers including Olympic medallist Vijender Singh.

Even so, it is not Hawa’s medals that feature most prominently in the stories Lamboria remembers hearing about him at home. “He was powerful, but there was also so much humility in him,” she says.

Her earliest boxing influences were her uncles, Sandeep Singh and Parvinder Singh. “I grew up watching them compete,” she says. “They were the ones who got me started.”

Lamboria began boxing seriously around the age of 14, training first at an academy run by Hawa’s son, Sanjay Sheoran, before continuing under her uncles.

Though the sport ran through her extended family, Lamboria grew up in a household of modest means. Her father, Jaiveer, works as a home guard, while her mother, Joginder, is a homemaker.

“Their support has been a big reason why I was the first girl in my immediate family to take up sport seriously,” she says, “not least as the youngest among the girls in the family.”

Her inspirations, meanwhile, extend well beyond her own family.