Indians rock the show

Guwahati, November 22 

Indian boxers remained on course for their best ever performance at the AIBA Women’s Youth World Championships, adding five more medals to the two already assured.

Jyoti Gulia (51kg), Shashi Chopra (57kg), Ankushita Boro (64kg), Nitu (48kg) and Sakshi Choudhary (54kg) entered the semifinals here today. They joined Neha Yadav (+81kg) and Anupama (81kg), who found themselves in the last-4 stage due to the small size of the draws of their respective weight categories.

However, Niharika Gonella (75kg) and Astha Pahwa (69kg) bowed out after going down to England’s Georgia O’Connor and Turkey’s Canser Oltu in their respective quarterfinal bouts.

First up for India today was Jyoti, who took on Italy’s Giovanna Marchese. The Haryana girl, who has an attacking style, had Giovanna on the back foot from the word go. Her dominance was consistent in all three rounds as she earned a unanimous 5-0 verdict.

Next up was another Haryana boxer, Shashi, who was up against 10th seed Sandugash Abilkhan of Kazakhstan. Sandugash was quite a handful in the opening three minutes but Shashi raised her game and increased the tempo in the second and third rounds to win by a unanimous decision.

Ankushita fought through the most draining of the Indian bouts today. Squaring off against Italy’s Rebecca Nicoli, the local favourite staved off a stiff challenge. What saved the day for Ankushita was her admirable footwork and reflexes. Rebecca remained in attack mode in all three rounds but struggled to connect due to Ankushita’s solid guard and quick movement.

In the evening session, top seed Nitu, the reigning national champion, had no trouble sailing past Germany’s Maxi Klotzer. Similar was the case with Sakshi, who eased past China’s Lu Xia. — PTI