'Nightmare' over, Vijender gets back to normal life

Speaking to PTI in an interview his first after the scandal broke out more than two months back the Olympic bronzemedallist opened up about what he went through before being given an quotallcleanquot certificate by the National AntiDoping Agency quotThe nightmare is finally over for me and I am back to my normal life I have started training and looking forward to the World Championships in Octoberquot said the 27yearold middleweight boxer the first Indian to become world number one in international rankings quotI am thankful to the Haryana Government the Sports Ministry the Indian Olympic Association and the Indian Boxing Federation for standing by me and because that gave me a lot of confidence Now I am back to training in the camp and nothing can be better then thisquot he added Vijender Singh Pic AP It has been more than two months since Vijender found himself in quandary when his name cropped up in a massive drug haul after Punjab police recovered heroin worth around Rs 130 crore from NRI Anoop Singh Kahlon39s house in Zirakpur The presence of a car used by Vijender39s wife Archana near the house raised a media storm and on On April 1 Punjab Police said Vijender bought heroin for personal consumption on 12 different occasions from Kahlon Vijender denied any wrongdoing and underwent a NADA dope test which came out negative The strapping sixfooter from Haryana said there are lessons to be learnt even in the worst of crisis and he learnt his while dealing with the controversy quotI believe whatever god does he does it for the good I always try to look at life like that Even in this incident I am sure god must have thought something good for mequot he said quotEvery incident good or bad teaches you something I also learnt a few things I realised who are my true friends and who are the hangers on I realised that difference because all my good friends formed a ring of support around mequot Vijender said quotAnother lesson is that I won39t ever be as casually friendly with anyone as I used to be I won39t ever leave my car keys or my mobile phone with anybody I have become wary of people which is quite natural given what I went throughquot added the boxer quotI was in Mumbai when the whole thing broke out Suddenly I see my car being found somewhere people taking my name and questions being asked about whether I was taking drugs it was painfulquot he said Asked if even for once he felt his achievements were being completely forgotten while his integrity was questioned Vijender chose to laugh it off quotMay be the TV channels love me a lot that39s why they kept showing me for so long it39s ok there is a price to pay if you are famousquot he quipped In fact he refused to call it the biggest crisis of his life insisting that anything bad can always be worse quotI don39t think it was the biggest crisis of the life because life is like that only it is unpredictable and I am taking it positively I haven39t lost faith in anything because I am a very optimistic personquot he explained quotI always try to see the good in everything and that gives me strength Even when I lost in the London Olympics quarterfinals I said to myself 39don39t lose heart god has his own plans39 Actually life just goes on you have to accept whatever challenge you face and become strongerquot he said He has already missed a couple of exposure trips and won39t be there for the Asian Championships next month after giving the national trials a miss Vijender if selected will next be seen in action only at the October World Championships Asked if he is intimidated by the scrutiny that he would invite due to the scandal Vijender said quotScrutiny has never scared me because I have had detractors all my lifequotu00a0 quotEven at the peak of my performance my abilities were questioned by a lot of people I don39t mind that and neither do I get affected because that39s not my job My job is to train hard and deliver results in tournaments and that39s how it will always be for me because that is the best way to deal with criticismquot he added quotMy grandmother often told me 39log unhi ko badnaam karte hain jinka naam hota hai39 people malign only those who have a name and I believe in that My family and my wife stood by me like a rock during this crisis I married Archana just two years ago our life has just begun and there she was supporting me all throughquot Vijender also thanked his fans saying their adulation formed a crucial cog in his support system quotI am also thankful to my fans they ignored whatever was being said in the media about me I got so many messages of support from them Yes I was facing a challenge but I would say god is kind that he gave me a support system like thisquot he said quotIt39s a closed chapter for me now I just want to focus on everything that I do inside the ringquot u00a0