Lakshya Chahar storms into pre-quarters at World Boxing Championships

Lakshya Chahar advanced to the round of 16 at the World Boxing Championships with a dominant win. Nikhat Zareen also impressed, but Lovlina Borgohain and Hitesh Gulia suffered defeats

Liverpool: India’s Lakshya Chahar came up with a clinical performance to blank Hussein Iashaish of Jordan to reach the round of the 16 in the men’s 80kg category at the World Boxing Championships in Liverpool on Sunday.

Lakshya began the bout aggressively but the Jordanian managed to close the gap in the second round. However, the Indian stepped up in the third round to complete a dominant 5:0 win.

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Earlier, Pawan Bartwal’s campaign in the men’s 55kg event came to an end when he went down 0:5 against Mirzakhalolov Mirazizbek Uzebekistan.

On Saturday, Nikhat Zareen started her campaign with a clinical win in the opening round of the women’s 51kg weight category.

The 29-year-old, who was crowned world champion twice before, had not competed in any international event this year but did not show any signs of rustiness as she dominated the USA’s Jennifer Lozano from the first minute to get a 5-0 verdict.

However, it was not a very good outing for the other two Indians in action on Saturday.

Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist Lovlina Borgohain went down 0:5 against Busra Isildar of Turkey in the second round of the women’s 75kg category while Hitesh Gulia’s spirited fight was not enough to avoid a 1:4 loss against Finn Robert Bos of Netherlands in the men’s 70kg bout.

India has fielded a 20-member contingent at the inaugural World Championships being held under the aegis of the World Boxing – a recently formed international governing body for boxing.

Three more boxers will be in action in the evening session on Sunday, with Jaismine (women’s 57kg) facing Jucielen Cerqueira Romeu of Brazil, Sanamacha Chanu (women’s 70kg) taking on Natalya Bogdanova of Kazakhstan and Abhinash Jamwal (men’s 65kg) will fight Hugo Barron of Mexico.