2020 Tokyo Olympics: Lovlina Borgohain loses semi-final, settles for bronze
India's latest Boxing sensation, Lovlina Borgohain, who assured India it's second medal at the Tokyo Olympics, lost her semifinal bout in the Welterweight category (64-69 kg) by 5-0 to the Current World No.1, Turkey's Busenaz by an unanimous decision on Wednesday.
By Newsmeter Network Published on 4 Aug 2021 8:09 AM GMT
Hyderabad: India's latest boxing sensation Lovlina Borgohain, who assured India its third medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, lost the semi-final bout in the Welterweight category (64-69 kg) by 5-0 to the current world no. 1, Turkey's Busenaz, on Wednesday. Lovlina, who ranks no. 3 in the world rankings, secured a bronze in her very first Olympics appearance.
The entire nation's eyes were on the semi-final bout with hopes for the elusive gold medal from Lovlina but the current world champion from Turkey gave the Indian boxer no chance. Lovlina was on the defensive from the beginning and the Turkish capitalized on this and landed punches frequently, gaining more points and winning the first round comfortably.
Moving onto the second round, Lovlina slowly began to attack and tried more punches but failed to do so as the Turkish moved quickly and dodged her punches, defending successfully. Although Lovlina managed to attack more in the second round, Busenaz Surmeneli proved to be too good for the Indian, winning the second round as well.
Trailing by two rounds already, this was the decisive round for Lovlina to further fight in the semi-final but Busanez brought her very best in the third round and looked unstoppable. Although, both Lovlina and Surmeneli landed punches frequently, Lovlina lost her rhythm, which meant she lost the third round as well.
This meant the end to Lovlina's Tokyo campaign as she settled for a bronze medal in her very first appearance at the Olympics. She is only the third boxer from India to win an Olympics medal after Vijender Singh won a bronze at Beijing 2008 and MC Mary Kom won a bronze at London 2012.
Hailing from Assam's Golaghat district, Lovlina had a very impressive campaign at Tokyo as she beat world no. 2, Chinese Taipei's Chen Nien-Chin, a familiar opponent with whom she had a history, in the quarter-final and secured India's third medal at Tokyo.
She first beat Nadine Apetz of Germany in the Round of 16 to qualify for the quarter-final.
She will now look forward to Paris Olympics, which is just three years away, and prepare hard to better her performance.
