Tokyo Olympics: Boxer Lovlina Borgohain reaches semis, assures India of a medal

Boxer Lovlina Borgohain beat Nien-Chin Chen at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics on Friday to reach the semi-finals of Women’s Welter (64-69kg) and assured India of at least a medal.

The 23-year-old boxer won 4-1 and made it to the last-four. She will face reigning world champion Busenaz Surmeneli of Turkey, who hammered Anna Lysenko in her quarterfinal bout.

Lovlina, a two-time world championship bronze-medallist, remained calm against an opponent who had beaten her thrice in the past.

Lovlina was aggressive from the very start and followed it up with a killer counter-attacking game. She kept her defence tight throughout the game to emerge victoriously.

The youngster, who was laid low by COVID-19 last year and missed a training trip to Europe because of it, let out a huge scream after the referee raised her hand.

India’s previous boxing medals have come through Vijender Singh (2008) and M C Mary Kom (2012). Both of them had won bronze medals and Borgohain would look to better that.

Earlier, Simranjit Kaur (60kg) lost to Thailand’s Sudaporn Seesondee in the pre-quarterfinals to make an early exit from the Games here.

The 26-year-old Indian, seeded fourth, went down 0-5 despite a gritty performance.

She was impressive in the opening round and seemed to have caught Seesondee on the back-foot with her measured approach.

However, the judges ruled unanimously in favour of the Thai.

The Indian paid for the hyper-aggressive approach in the first few seconds itself when Seesondee managed to connect some eye-catching left hooks.

The defensive errors in the second put paid to Simranjit’s chances and even though she gave it her all in the third round, it needed nothing short of a demolition job to get over the line.

However, that was not to be as she bowed out following a unanimous verdict.

The 29-year-old Thai is a two-time world championships medallist and also won a silver in the 2018 Asian Games.