Women’s National Boxing Championships 2022: Nikhat Zareen, Lovlina Borgohain in finals

Tokyo 2020 bronze medallist Lovlina Borgohain and world champion Nikhat Zareen stormed into the finals of the Women’s National Boxing Championships 2022 in Bhopal on Sunday.

Lovlina Borgohain, representing Assam in the 75kg category, had an easy outing against Jigyasa Rajput of Madhya Pradesh and won by unanimous decision to make the gold medal bout. She will be up against 2021 World Youth Champion Arundhati Choudhary of  Services Sports Control Board (SSCB) in the final on Monday.

Telangana’s Nikhat Zareen comfortably won 5-0 against Shvinder Kaur of All India Police (AIP) in the 50kg semi-final and will take on Anamika for the gold medal.

Apart from Lovlina Borgohain and Nikhat Zareen, world championships bronze medallists Manisha (57kg) from Haryana, Punjab’s Simranjit Kaur (60kg) and eight boxers from Railway Sports Promotion Board (RSPB) also made the cut for finals. 

Manisha defeated RSPB’s Sonia Lather 4-1 and will face Vinakshi of Himachal Pradesh in the final. Simranjit Kaur (60kg) got the better of AIP’s Kros Hmangaihsangi and will be up against RSPB’s Poonam in the summit clash. 

Manju Rani, a 2019 world championships silver medallist, and 2017 World Youth Champion Jyoti Gulia, will be favourites to win the title in 48kg and 52kg, respectively. Both represent RSPB.

Manju Rani continued her good form and beat Anjali Sharma of Madhya Pradesh by a 5-0 margin. She will take on S Kalaivani of Tamil Nadu in the final on Monday. 

Jyoti Gulia beat Uttar Pradesh’s Sonia 4-1 and will square off against SSCB’s Sakshi in the final. 

The other six Railways boxers who moved into the finals are Anupama (50kg), Shikhsa (54kg), Poonam (60 kg), Shashi (63kg), Anupama (81kg) and Nupur (81+kg).

The Women’s National Boxing Championships 2022 finals will be held on Monday.