An Olympic silver medallist at the other end of the ring, short and awkward with her speed - tailormade to exploit the weaknesses of your game.
Jaismine Lamboria succumbed. A first-round exit at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
An Olympic silver medallist at the other end of the ring, the judges award the first round to your opponent, but you let go of your old, defensive self and unleash flurry-after-flurry to win.
Jaismine Lamboria, World Champion.
Tall (5 feet 9 inches), rangy and intelligent with her boxing, Jaismine always had the raw materials to be an excellent boxer. It also helped that she hailed from a boxing family, her great grand-uncle being Hawa Singh, who won gold at the 1966 and 1970 Asian Games.
"Right from the time I was very young, I saw my uncles - Sandeep Lamboria and Parminder Lamboria - the way they trained, their medals, their boxing equipment. And then hearing the names and achievements of Mary Kom and Vijender Singh on the news, it sparked a desire within me to take up boxing," said Jaismine when featuring in an Indian Army documentary.
The weight of her heritage probably also explained Jaismine's boxing style right from when she started the sport at the age of 15: cautious, shy, with only the odd accurate counter-punch, preferring to take advantage of her height and range. She worked her way up the ranks, winning the nationals before a bronze at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, where the limitations of her approach came to the fore.
Coming up short
Gemma Richardson stood 5 feet 5 inches tall at the other end of the ring in Birmingham and her fast, aggressive style caught Jaismine by surprise. The Indian did eventually hold her own, but it was too late, as she lost that semifinal bout 2:3 to take the CWG bronze.
Her struggles against short, fast boxers undermined Jaismine's confidence, although her nemesis domestically, Parveen Hooda, stood only an inch shorter. Parveen had usurped Jaismine's spot in the 57kg division and capped that off with an Asian Games bronze in 2023. Jaismine had to move up a weight class (60kg), and her Asian Games campaign ended with a quarterfinal loss (RSC) against North Korean boxer Won Un-gyong (5 feet 5 inches). It also revealed new gaps in her defence - Jaismine had won the first round 5-0, but as Won started the second with a flurry, the Indian retreated into a shell and was unable to deal with the barrage, needing the referee to stop the contest.
Losing the Olympic trials to Parveen further deepened the malaise, but a last-minute call-up due to Parveen's disqualification offered a ray of hope.
Sadly, in Jaismine's first-round bout in Paris, it was another short, fast boxer - Nesthy Petecio of the Philippines - 2019 World Champion, 2020 Tokyo Olympic silver medallist, and more importantly, standing five feet two inches tall. Jaismine had no answer, being comprehensively beaten 0:5 by the eventual bronze medallist in Paris.
The reboot
A change of style was needed. Even with her physical advantage, Jaismine's best quality remained her intelligence, as her coaches testified. Studious and diligent, Jaismine was able to immediately implement a slightly more aggressive approach. With Parveen Hooda out of the picture in her division, she could focus on being patient with her changes.
The Boxing Federation of India opted against sending her to the World Boxing Cup in Brazil, and instead focused on the second stage in Astana in July of this year. Jaismine debuted her new style, and while it was an improved showing, split decisions went her way against short, fast boxers like Jucielen Romeu (gold at the World Boxing Cup in Brazil) as Jaismine claimed gold in her new avatar.
More work needed to be done - on another day, Romeu could easily have been adjudged the winner of the gold medal bout in Astana, and so returned Jaismine. She had to control distances better, while picking when to be aggressive.
Standing tall as world champion
After dispatching with Daria-Olha Hutarina of the Ukraine in the preliminaries, Jaismine faced an immediate test of her improvement in the round-of-16 at the 2025 Boxing World Championships in Liverpool. Romeu stood at the opposite end of the ring, and Jaismine picked her moments with ease, controlling the bout right from the off. A split decision in Astana; a unanimous 5:0 victory in Liverpool - Romeu was sent packing. Jaismine v. 2.0 was here.
Even the highly-rated U-22 Asian champion Mamajonova Khumorabonu of Uzbekistan, who had breezed into the quarterfinals against Jaismine with unanimous wins, was left with no time to breathe. Jaismine started fast, gained the upper hand, and left her opponent reeling in another comprehensive 5:0 win as she sealed her first-ever Worlds medal.
Jaismine then faced the in-form Omailyn Alcala of Venezuela, who had accounted for both Paris Olympic bronze medallists, Esra Yildiz and Wu Shih-yi, en-route her semifinal clash against the Indian. This had the potential to be awkward, Omailyn wasn't much shorter and was fast and aggressive. Jaismine used a mix of her old self - staving off Alcala's rushes with great footwork, and picking her moments to counter-punch. A strategic victory (also unanimous), this was Jaismine reminding everyone of her all-round game as she entered the final.
As Julia Szeremeta walked into the red corner in Liverpool, one could be forgiven for thinking it was Warsaw, such was the overwhelming support for the Polish boxer. Having won Olympic silver in Paris, Szeremeta was now the best boxer in the division since Lin Yu-ting (two-time world champion, 2022 Asian Games and 2024 Olympics gold) of Chinese Taipei had pulled out of the Worlds following World Boxing's mandatory gender-testing requirement.
An excellent technical boxer, who in addition to being fast, was precise, Szeremeta (5 feet 5 inches) was Jaismine's toughest test yet. The Indian did not let nerves take over, closing distances for quick flurries, and watchfully negating Szeremeta's speed, although the Pole did catch her with quick jabs on occasion. The first-round was awarded to Szeremeta 3:2, although it could have easily gone Jaismine's way.
Szeremeta had done her homework, attempting barrage after barrage in the second round, but Jaismine smartly kept her distance. Importantly, she did not retreat into a shell, instead using the gaps between Szeremeta's aggressive flurries to land excellent counter-punches. It was a strategic masterclass and the judges agreed, with all five handing the second round to Jaismine.
देश की बेटियाँ ����✨
Leading Indian boxing's highest-ever medal haul ������@BoxerJaismine, a World Champion in her very first final defeated the best to become the world's best in 57kg ����
Proud moment for India! �� #Boxing pic.twitter.com/r9etgJEH5n
- Boxing Federation (@BFI_official) September 14, 2025
Jaismine's fast left hook did some early damage in the third round, and she then made it a range battle. Szeremeta was punching air as Jaismine danced around her in the ring. The Pole grew increasingly desperate as Jaismine's counter-punching came to the fore again, the Indian employing her entire arsenal in a third round that she edged.
The judges agreed, awarding her the third round as well, with one lone holdout - a 4-1 victory. In 45 minutes in the ring in Liverpool, Jaismine displayed the work of nine years, and when her arm was raised, there she stood, finally, as world champion. A title none from her pedigreed boxing background in Bhiwani, Haryana could claim. Not Hawa Singh, not Amit Panghal, not Vijender Singh.
From Olympic reject to world champion, Jaismine Lamboria had written her own story... with more to come.