Lovlina Borgohain, Parveen Hooda, Saweety and Alfiya Pathan Win Gold at Asian Boxing Championships

Indian boxers Lovlina Borgohain (75kg), Parveen Hooda (63kg), Saweety (81kg) and Alfiya Pathan (81+kg) claimed gold medals at the Asian Championships in Amman, Jordan on Friday.

Parveen notched up a facile 5-0 victory over Japan’s Kito Mai.

The world championships bronze medallist, who missed the Commonwealth Games, put up a dominant show to beat fourth seeded Mai via unanimous decision.

Both the boxers started on the offensive but the top-seeded Parveen was able to dominate the proceedings as she jabbed her opponent at will.

Having lost the opening round, Mai then tried to up the ante but Parveen swiftly dodged all her attacks.

The Indian was especially impressive with her upper cuts in the third round.

Lovlina defeated Ruzmetova Sokhiba of Uzbekistan 5:0 by unanimous decision in the final.

The title will be a big morale booster for the 25-year-old Lovlina who has struggled to find form since her bronze-medal winning exploits at the Tokyo Olympics. She made early exits in the World Championships and Commonwealth Games earlier this year.

The Assam boxer has moved up from 69kg to 75kg division as her former weight class doesn’t feature in the Paris Olympics.

The two boxers started the proceedings on a tentative note, inviting the other to attack first, but Lovlina was able to use her long reach and land a few clean jabs.

The two danced around the ring trying to avoid each other’s attack, however, Lovlina succeeded in landing her jabs. One jab of her’s was so powerful that the referee was forced to give Sokhiba the count.

Despite it only being a five-boxer field, Lovlina has shown immense improvement during the course of the three bouts she played in the tournament.

It is Lovlina’s third Asian Championship medal, she had won the bronze in 2017 and 2021 in the welterweight division.

Saweety defeated Gulsaya Yerzhan of Kazakhstan 5:0 by unanimous decision as Alfiya defeated Islam Husaili of Jordan due to opponent disqualification to clinch gold.

Minakshi Gets Silver

Minakshi, on the other hand, concluded her maiden Asian Championships campaign by clinching a silver medal in the flyweight division (52kg).

Minakshi toiled hard but lost the gold medal bout to Kinoshita Rinka of Japan via 1-4 spilt verdict.

Minakshi was slow to start, with the second seed Japanese taking full advantage of the Indian’s sluggishness as four out of the five judges voted in her favour.

In the second round as well, Minakshi looked lost. She was unable to land clear punches and resorted to clinching while the Japenese pugilist, who played more accurately and defended well.

It was effectively the second round that cost Minakshi the tie as she made a stunning recovery in the final three minutes by using a combination of punches to take the round 4-1, but it was too late as the judges ruled in Rinka’s favour.

Five-time Asian Championships medallist Shiva Thapa is the lone male boxer to have made it to the final in this prestigious tournament in which India are assured of 12 medals.

A total of 267 boxers from 27 countries are taking part in the event.

(With inputs from Agencies)

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