New Delhi: Lose two kg in four hours - sounds like the advertisement of an outlandish weight-loss regimen. But this was the challenge that a jet-lagged MC Mary Kom was confronted with when she landed in Poland for a just-concluded boxing tournament.

But the iron lady of India rose to the occasion and picked up her third gold medal of the year.

"We landed in Poland at round 3-3:30 am and the general weigh-in was at around 7:30am. I was a couple of kilograms above 48kg, the category I compete in, at that point," the five-time world champion, who is also an Olympic bronze-medallist, said after her return to India.

"So, I had roughly four hours to shed that or I would have been disqualified for being overweight at the time of general weigh-in. But I did skipping for an hour at a stretch and just like that, I was ready," said the 35-year-old, a colossus not just in Indian boxing but also in the international arena.

"Thankfully, the flight we travelled in was nearly empty so I could sleep with my legs outstretched, ensuring that I was not stiff on landing there. Otherwise, I don't know how I would have been able to compete," she recalled.

The diminutive Manipuri was the lone senior gold-medal winner for India at the tournament in Poland, a testimony to her incredible longevity and also a reflection of the lack of depth in Indian women's boxing.

Mention that to her and the mother-of-three offers a lopsided grin and an answer that is solely focussed on what she has done right over the nearly two decades she has been around.

"I am never satisfied with how I perform, I am always looking to work out new strategies. I am obsessive but not overtly aggressive. I like to conserve in a bout. I always like to study my opponents and then dismantle them bit by bit," she said. PTI