India’s Pooja Rani falls short of a medal, exits in quarter-final at Tokyo Olympics boxing
The reigning Asian champion was defeated by Rio 2016 bronze medallist Li Qian from China by a unanimous decision in the women’s 75kg (middleweight) category.
India’s Pooja Rani was knocked out of the Tokyo Olympics by China’s Li Qian in the women’s 75kg quarter-finals.
The two-time Asian champion, Pooja Rani lost a challenging middleweight contest by unanimous decision at the Ryogoku Kokugikan arena.
Pooja Rani, the world No. 8, could not overcome the tactically superior No. 4 seed Li Qian, who had won bronze at Rio 2016.
The Indian middleweight started strong, but the former world champion Li Qian soon found a footing and raced ahead with her opportune punches. Playing with a loose guard, the Chinese defended well with her swift footwork and swayed away from most of Pooja Rani’s attacks while also connecting with her left cross.
Second seed Li Qian put up a commanding display to close out the first round convincingly.
The second round also saw Pooja finding herself on the end of the Chinese boxer’s flurry on at least two occasions. The two-time Asian champion Li Qian shuffled her stance occasionally, which the Indian found difficult to counter.
The Chinese boxer kept her attack limited and connected well with most of the punches she threw.
After trailing in the first two rounds, Pooja Rani could not do any better in the third as Li Qian remained largely unperturbed. The Chinese boxer used her strong jabs to dominate the Indian and take the victory by unanimous decision.
This was Pooja Rani’s third straight defeat to Li Qian, having previously lost at the 2014 Asian Games and 2020 Olympic qualification tournament.
Earlier, Lovlina Borgohain assured herself a medal at Tokyo 2020 after she beat Chinese Taipei’s Chen Nien-chin by a 4:1 split decision in the quarter-final.
However, MC Mary Kom lost in the women’s flyweight pre-quarterfinal to Ingrit Valencia and Simranjit Kaur went down to Sudaporn Seesondee in the women’s lightweight round of 16 clash.
Amit Panghal (52kg), Manish Kaushik (63kg), Vikas Krishan (69kg) and Ashish Kumar (75kg) have all lost their opening bouts.
Satish Kumar (+91kg) is the only male Indian boxer to still have a chance of a medal at Tokyo 2020. He will step in the ring on Sunday.