Thai boxer Jutamas Jitpong returns to the Olympics on her own terms

BANGKOK – Jutamas Jitpong bounces around the ring, eyes shielded by her gloved fists as she looks for an opening to land a jab. Her opponent lunges forward with a cross that is easily dodged.

For a split second, the lanky Thai boxer flashes a cheeky grin, before putting on a game face honed over the years in her hunt for an Olympic medal. No matter that this is a practice bout in the heart of Bangkok.

The 26-year-old daughter of rubber tappers, with the nickname of “Fave”, has waited three years to redeem herself. During the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, she crashed out in the flyweight quarter-finals, losing 5-0 to Turkey’s Buse Naz Cakiroglu, who went on to win the silver medal. She cried when interviewed by the Thai media after the match.

“I wasn’t upset about my loss,” she recounted to The Straits Times after a training session in May 2024. “I cried because I was talking about my family. The reporter had asked: ‘What message do you have for your father and mother?’ I said: ‘I am sorry I couldn’t go further’.

“See? When I tell you this, I want to cry again.”

Her family believed in her when no one – not even herself – did.

“I’m not a talented boxer. People around me didn’t believe in me. But my entire family has always believed I could do it. I am here because of my family.”

Money was tight for the Nakhon Si Thammarat province-based family, but everyone scrimped to make sure that Jutamas – the youngest of three siblings – was never in want of anything.

At 14, the budding boxer spent a lot of time in the free pair of trainers given by her sport school. Her feet started swelling and it did not get any better over the next two months. Her teacher sent her to a doctor, who asked her to wear better shoes.

That was when her father spent 5,000 baht (S$186) to get her a pair of trainers.

“It was very expensive. Back in those days, a bowl of noodles cost just 10 or 15 baht. But my father bought the shoes. He told me: ‘Whatever you want, just say it.’

“My family did not have a lot of money, but I never felt that I was lacking anything. When I lost a match, they never had any discouraging words for me.”

Her qualification for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics happened by chance. North Korea had pulled out over concerns about the Covid-19 pandemic, so its quotas were reallocated to athletes next in the global rankings.

“Back then, I wasn’t ready. I was too weak for such a big stage, but I still went and tried my best,” she said.

Thailand’s female athletes delivered its only two medals from the Games – a gold in taekwondo by Panipak Wongpattanakit and a bronze in boxing by Sudaporn Seesondee. Sudaporn, 32, has since turned to coaching after injuring her shoulder. The quest for boxing medals now rests with Jutamas and the other seven members of Thailand’s boxing contingent, five of whom are women.

Since the Tokyo Olympics, Jutamas has picked up a 2023 SEA Games gold medal in the 54kg category, as well as a bantamweight bronze in the world championships in New Delhi that same year. She has faced off against world champions like Indian boxer Nikhat Zareen.

“I’m much more confident now,” she said. “The fighters – the good ones that I have won and lost to – I have seen them all and know them all. I’ve had close matches with opponents whom I thought would be tough. I feel I can win a medal this time round, though some of it will also depend on luck.”

Still, she reiterated: “I still don’t feel that I am good. But I am much better than before. I want to consistently do better.”

Her family’s circumstances, meanwhile, have improved given her monthly income of 40,000 baht and other financial rewards she gets as a national athlete and corporal in the air force. She takes particular joy in sharing the money with her relatives.

“My family has always given me support. And I don’t spend so much money anyway.”

Her family, she stressed, has never put financial pressure on her. “They have never asked me for money. My mother will sometimes ask for household items like bedsheets because she doesn’t know how to buy them, but she has never asked me for money.”

When not training for competition, Jutamas likes to return to her family home or take her parents out on provincial trips. Her lesser-known pastime is fishing, either in canals or in the sea off Bang Saen Beach in Chonburi province.

“I have never managed to catch any fish,” she let on with a giggle.