India’s gold medals at the IBA Women’s Boxing World Championships came from Nikhat Zareen, Saweety Boora, Lovlina Borgohain and Nitu Ghanghas.
New Delhi: Lovlina Borgohain (75kg) defeated Australia’s Caitlin Parker 5-2 to break her ‘bronze jinx’ on Sunday to become world champion for the first time. It was India’s fourth gold medal in the ongoing IBA Women’s Boxing World Championships after Nikhat Zareen, Saweety Boora and Nitu Ghanghas also achieved the same.
Nikhat upstaged two-time Asian champion Vietnam’s Nguyen Thi Tam by a 5-0 verdict to take the light flyweight title infront of a packed KD Jadhav Indoor Hall. Two-time bronze medallist Lovlina, on the other hand, defeated Caitlin Parker of Australia 5-2 to win her maiden World title.
With the win, Nikhat becomes only the second Indian after the legendary MC Mary Kom to win the title of the prestigious tournament twice. Saweety and Nitu won gold medals on Saturday.
“I am very happy that I have become a world champion for the second time, especially in an Olympic category,” Nikhat, who won the 52kg title last year, said after her bout.
“Today’s bout was the toughest for me, she is an Asian champion and my next target is Asian Games and I might meet her, so I will work hard,” Nikhat said. “It was a roller coaster bout, she got warning, I got warning, she got count so did I. But I went all out.”
“For me, this is the first major competition in this category after the Commonwealth Games, which did not have much competition.
“But here, countries from all over the world competed and had back-to-back matches also, my body was a bit slow in some matches. I will learn from these experience and try to become stronger,” Nikhat, who has already qualified for the Asian Games, said.
