Asian Boxing Championship | Mary Kom assures medal for India after entering semi-final
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MC Mary Kom has assured her sixth medal at the Asian women’s Boxing Championships as she stormed into the semi-finals of the event. Neeraj Kumari and Sonia Lather have also progressed into the quarter-finals of the event after defeating Myanmar’s Nally Nally and Japan’s Kana Kurogi respectively.
India
Meanwhile, Shiksha Singh also progressed into the quarter-finals and Neeraj Kumari (51kg) and Sonia Lather (57kg), too, followed suit as they beat Myanmar’s Nally Nally and Japan’s Kana Kurogi respectively by unanimous decisions.
Haryana boxer Neeraj Kumari was the first one to get a win for India on the day as she battled to maintain India’s perfect start to the campaign. She has had an impressive year so far, where she earned a gold medal in the six nations cup in Serbia and her confidence was showing.
She dominated her opponent making good use of her height as she back-pedaled effectively, which forced Nally to drop her guard and lunge forward. The national champion was left out of ideas as her attempts at connecting punches became feeble with time.
Lather had a more eye-catching win who strategically outsmarted her opponent in the 57kg round of 16. After a slow start where she was mostly defensive in the first-round blocking and parrying punches, the 25-year-old picked up her momentum in the second round with several clean punches on Kurogi, from which she couldn’t recover.
Pooja Rani couldn’t carry on the torch for the Indian contingent as she lost to China’s Xiaoli Yang in the first win, a win in which would have assured the 81-kg pugilist a medal.
