Pooja Rani bagged India's first gold medal of the 2021 Asian Boxing Championships, successfully defending her 75kg category title, beating Mavluda Movlonova on Sunday night in Dubai.
MC Mary Kom, Lalbuatsaihi and Anupama were also in action in their gold medal matches but all three finished on the wrong end of the result, ending their campaigns with a silver medal each.
The four medals on Sunday took India's tally to 10 medals for the women's contingent with Simranjit Kaur (60kg), Lovlina Borgohain (69kg), Jaismine (57kg), Sakshi Chaudhary (54kg), Monika (48kg) and Saweety (81kg) bagging a bronze each after losing their semi-final matches on Friday.
Rani has already qualified for the Tokyo Olympics later this summer and in the final, she took down Uzbekistan's Movlonova who had beaten London Olympics medallist Marina Volnova on her way to the final.
Pooja was sharp in her approach and relentless in attack and left no opening for the Uzbek boxer to stage a fightback as she sealed the gold medal win with a 5-0 scoreline.
The gold is Pooja’s fourth medal at the Championships after she won the final in 2019 and bagged a silver in 2012 and a bronze in 2015.
Pooja Rani successfully defended her gold medal at the 2021 Asian Championships.
(Photo: BFI)
Silver for Mary, Lalbuatsaihi and Anupama
Earlier on Sunday, India's most celebrated boxer MC Mary Kom and also Lalbuatsaihi both lost their gold medal matches to finish with a silver at the Championships.
India's six-time world champion lost 2-3 to the two-time world champion Nazym Kyzaibay while Lalbuatsaihi (64kg) also fought a close match, to lose to Milana Safronova of Kazakhstan also with a 2-3 scoreline.
Despite having the advantage of experience, Mary, 38, failed to tame Nazym, who is nearly 11 years younger to her. The Kazakh boxer began the contest on an aggressive note and with a good combination of right and left punches that unsettled Mary, who went off balance twice in the second round.
In the third and final round, Mary made desperate attempts to recover lost ground but Nazym proved a hard nut to crack.
Mary's silver on Sunday is her second at the tournament, with the 38-year-old having won gold medals at the 2003, 2005, 2010, 2012 and 2017 editions and her silver coming in 2008.
In the plus-81kg final, Anupama lost 2-3 to Lazzat Kungeibayeva of Kazakhstan.
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