World Champion Nikhat Zareen and Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist Lovlina Borgohain emerged as the finalists of Women’s National Championships on Sunday.
Adding to the list of accolades, Eight Railways boxers, including 2019 World Championships silver medallist Manju Rani (48kg) and 2017 World Youth Champion Jyoti Gulia (52kg), also rose to the final round.
Nikhat (50 kg), representing Telangana, won against AIP’s Shvinder Kaur with a score of 5-0 against and etched the prestigious yellow metal on her name. Assam’s Lovlina (75 kg) won against Madhya Pradesh’s Jigyasa Rajput and unanimously won the round.
For the gold medal stint she will face the 2021 World Youth Champion Arundhati Choudhary of SSCB. On the other hand, Manju faced an outing with Madhya Pradesh’s Anjali Sharma and emerged as the winner after a long range fight fetching a score of 5-0. The finals will be against S Kalaivani of Tamil Nadu.
Jyoti played magic with her backfoot strategy against Uttar Pradesh’s Sonia. Despite a time consuming round of much efforts, Jyoti was able to gauge the strategy of her opponent ending with the phenomenal 4-1 score.
She will have a face off against SSCB’s Sakshi in the final. The other 6 Railways boxers who outperformed are Anupama (50 kg), Shikhsa (54kg), Poonam (60 kg), Shashi (63 kg), Anupama (81 kg) and Nupur (81+kg).
Erstwhile World Championships bronze medallist Manisha (57 kg) and World Championships bronze medallist Simranjit Kaur (60 kg) fetched a good run till now and reached the finals successfully.
The finals will take place on Monday. The event featured 302 boxers, competing across 12 different weight categories.