New Delhi: India’s Preeti Pawar stunned Paris Olympics bronze medallist Aeji Im to enter Asian Boxing Championships’ 54kg title round but two-time world champion Nikhat Zareen went down in the 51kg semi-final in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, on Monday.
An Asian Games bronze medallist, Preeti dominated her South Korean opponent in all three rounds to notch up a 5-0 victory and faces three-time world champion Huang Hsiao-wen in the final.
Defending champion Chinese Taipei’s Huang also won in 2019 and 2023 is also the bronze medal winner at Tokyo Olympics.
Nikhat lost 0-5 to reigning Olympic medalist China’s Wu Yu for her second loss to the Chinese, having gone down at the Paris Olympics too.
Lovline Borgohain, bronze medallist at Tokyo 2020, slumped to a 0-5 defeat to 70kg World Championships bronze medal winner Aziza Zokirova of Uzbekistan in the 75kg semi-final.
It was Lovlina’s first bout in the competition after receiving a bye in the opening round. Also losing in the last four stage was world championship medallist Pooja Rani and Ankushita Boro to settle for brinze medals.
Ankushita was beaten 0-3 by Paris Olympics bronze medallist Nien-Chin Chen of Chinese Taipei in the 65kg semis while in the women’s 80kg category Pooja surrendered 0-5 to 2023 World Championships bronze medallist Nadezhda Ryabets of Kazakhstan.
On the brighter side for India, Priya and Arundhati Choudhary won their 60kg and 70kg semi-final bouts respectively.
Priya outboxed local hope Namuun Monkhor 5-0 to set up a clash with North Korea’s Un Gyong Won in the final.
Arundhati registered a 4-1 victory over Uzbek Oysha Toirova and will face Kazakhstan’s Bakyt Seidish for the gold medal.