Lovlina celebrates birthday with maiden gold at Asiad

Lovlina Borgohain ended India’s 12-year wait for an Asian Games women’s boxing gold by defeating China’s Ziyi Bao 5-0 in the 75kg final. The Olympic bronze medallist became only the second Indian woman after Mary Kom to win Asian Games boxing gold 

Nishio: One of the country’s most decorated boxers, Lovlina Borgohain ended India’s 12-year wait for an Asian Games women’s boxing gold, defeating China’s Ziyi Bao in the 75kg final to give herself a perfect birthday gift here on Friday.

Olympic bronze-medallist Lovlina defeated Bao by a 5-0 unanimous decision to upgrade the silver she had won at the last edition.

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With this win, Lovlina became only the second Indian woman after the legendary MC Mary Kom to claim an Asian Games boxing gold. The Manipuri had won the flyweight (51kg) title at the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon.

Lovlina made the most of her considerable height advantage, while Bao constantly tried to close the distance and deny the Indian space to work.

The approach made for a messy contest, with Bao resorting to repeated clinches.

In a departure from her usual approach, Lovlina started aggressively, landing a few punches right away, but Bao was equally fierce with her counters.

The Chinese southpaw connected a couple of combinations, before Lovlina finished the round strongly with some clean, heavy punches to edge it 3-2.

Trailing, Bao came out aggressively in the second round, looking to close the distance, while Lovlina tried to keep her at bay and create room for her punches.

The Indian managed to find her range towards the end of the round, landing a series of clean blows to take it 4-1 on the judges’ cards.

The same pattern continued in the final round, with Bao throwing punches in abundance but struggling to land cleanly. Lovlina remained compact in defence and picked her moments to counter.

Having done enough to establish her lead, Lovlina slowed the pace in the closing stages and chose not to engage unnecessarily, keeping Bao at a distance and seeing out the contest.

At the last edition, Lovlina had lost to another Chinese boxer, Li Qian, in the final, settling for silver. This time, she made sure there was no repeat of that result.

Indian boxers have already bettered their performance from the last edition by assuring six medals in Aichi-Nagoya.

Priya Ghanghas (60kg), Kapil Pokhariya (90kg) and Narender Berwal (+90kg) won bronze medals, while Parveen Hooda (65kg) and Ankush Panghal (80kg) will fight for gold later in the day.

India’s best-ever boxing performance at the Asian Games came at the Guangzhou 2010 edition, when the contingent won nine medals — two gold, three silver and four bronze.

The strong showing in the continental event comes on the back of Indian boxers’ record-breaking campaign at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow last month.