Ahead of India’s 80th Independence Day celebrations on Saturday, Jaismine spoke exclusively to India.com website and recounted her childhood memories from this special day.
“I grew up studying at a government school in Bhiwani but I remember that Independence Day was always a special thing for us. We used to celebrate Independence Day in grand fashion every year. We usually had to attend the celebrations in school every year and got leave on August 16 instead. We always had special guests coming over during Independence Day celebrations – whether it is senior government officials, politicians or event celebrated sportspersons. So we looked forward to it every year,” Jaismine Lamboria told India.com in an exclusive interview.
The Indian boxer is a distant relative of Captain Hawa Singh – the only Indian boxer to win successive gold medals at Asian Games. Even her uncles Parvinder Singh and Sandeep Singh are former international boxers.
Jaismine praised how Indian sports has progressed in the last decade. “Indian sports is in such better condition currently, that’s what all my seniors and my family members tell me. The Indian Government is taking great care of us. We have so much of scientific inputs to helps us in our training – it really helped us since the World Boxing Championships last year. Indian sports is developing rapidly and addition of sports psychologists and sports medicine experts will help the country a top sporting nation in the next 20 years,” the CWG 2026 gold medallist said about her vision for Indian sports by 100th Independence Day.
The 2025 World Boxing Champion had only one name when asked about India’s top sportsperson since Independence in 1947. Jaismine named two-time Olympics medal-winning javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra as her sporting hero.
“Neeraj Chopra is India’s greatest sporting hero for me. I had met him for the first time in the Paris Olympics 2024 and he was such a down-to-earth person. He keeps asking and checking up with us about our training whenever he meets us. We met in Glasgow also briefly during the Commonwealth Games and he motivated us a lot with his pep talk,” Jaismine said.
Neeraj Chopra won the gold medal in Tokyo Olympics 2021 and then followed it up with a silver medal in Paris Olympics 2024. He also brought home a silver medal from the men’s javelin event at the Commonwealth Games 2026.
Jaismine also fondly shared about her special meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his residence last week. “PM Narendra Modi hosted us at his home last week. He made us feel so comfortable and we didn’t feel that we were meeting Prime Minister of our nation. He interacted with all of us and encouraged us to share our experiences from CWG and sports in general. It was a meeting that I will always remember in my life,” Jaismine said.