Despite her best efforts, Meenakshi lost 1-4 in a split decision to Japan’s Kinoshita Rinka in the gold medal match.
Lovlina Borgohain wins gold in Asian Championship
Indian women boxers continue their stellar performance in the Asian Championships. Indian boxers Lovlina Borgohain (75kg), Parveen Hooda (63kg), Sweety (81kg) and Alfia Khan (+81kg) won gold medals at the ongoing championships in Amman, Jordan on Friday. Five women players of India reached the final. Olympic bronze medalist and her first participation in a tournament in the 75kg category, Lovlina won 5-0 unanimous decision over Uzbekistan’s Ruzmetova Sokhiba while Parveen defeated Japan’s Kito Mai by the same margin.
This is Lovlina’s third medal at the Asian Championship. He won bronze medals in the welterweight category in 2017 and 2021. World Championship bronze medalist Parveen could not participate in the Commonwealth Games but she dominated against fourth seed Mai and won by unanimous decision here.
Sweety and Alfia also won gold
After this Sweety and Alfia won the gold medal by defeating Gulsaya Yerzan of Kazakhstan and Islam Husseli of Jordan respectively. Sweety easily defeated Yerjan while Alfia’s opponent was eliminated in the first round due to disqualification. Meenakshi, on the other hand, ended her campaign on debut at the Asian Championships by winning a silver medal in the flyweight category (52kg). The win was a morale booster for 25-year-old Lovlina as she was in poor form after winning the bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics. She was dropped early in the World Championships and Commonwealth Games.
Lovlina showed her strength
The Assam boxer switched from 69kg to 75kg as her previous weight category is not included in the Paris Olympics. Both the boxers started off smoothly and invited each other to attack but Lovlina soon established her dominance with some strong punches. After this both also tried to avoid each other’s attack. However, Lovlina managed to hit some hard punches. One of his punches was so strong that the referee had to count the count for Sokhiba.
Meenakshi lost final match
Despite her best efforts, Meenakshi lost 1-4 in a split decision to Japan’s Kinoshita Rinka in the gold medal match. Meenakshi had a slow opening against the second seeded Japanese while the rival boxer took full advantage of the Indian’s sluggishness and got four out of five judges to decide in his favour.