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Asian Boxing Championships: Lovlina Borgohain wins 75kg gold; Parveen Hooda takes 63kg title

Lovlina Borgohain Buda Mendes/Getty Images

Lovlina Borgohain looked at ease as she won gold in her maiden appearance in the middleweight division while Parveen Hooda took home the 63kg Asian Boxing Championship title in Amman, Jordan on Friday.

Olympic bronze medallist Lovlina, competing in her maiden tournament in the 75kg category, cruised to a 5-0 unanimous decision win over Ruzmetova Sokhiba of Uzbekistan, with Parveen notched also winning by a similar margin over Japan's Kito Mai.

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

The win will be a big morale booster for the 25-year-old Lovlina, who has struggled to find form since her bronze-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 2024 Paris Olympics.

The two boxers started the proceedings on a tentative note, inviting the other to attack first, but Lovlina, who has shown immense improvement during the course of the tournament, 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 attacks but Lovlina succeeded in landing jabs. One jab of her's was powerful enough to force the referee into giving Sokhiba the count.


Earlier, World championships bronze medallist Parveen, who missed out on the Commonwealth Games, put up a dominant show to beat fourth seeded Mai via unanimous decision.

Both 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 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.


In the first Indian final of the day, Minakshi toiled hard but lost the gold medal bout to Kinoshita Rinka of Japan via 1-4 split verdict.

Minakshi was slow to start, with the second-seeded Japanese boxer 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 her opponent was accurate 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.