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At the ongoing IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships, in 2023. Golden girls, Nitu Ghanghas, and Saweety Boora clinched the gold medal in their respective categories,
India had a field day at the ongoing IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships, in 2023. Golden girls, Nitu Ghanghas, and Saweety Boora clinched the gold medal in their respective categories, thereby winning both the finals scheduled for the day.
Organized by the International Boxing Association, this year is the 13th edition of the championships, being held in New Delhi from 15th to 26th March 2023. Both the girls have been Commonwealth Gold medallists.
Image source: IBA
On Saturday evening, Nitu Ghanghas defeated Mongolia’s Lutsaikhan Altantsetseg, to clinch the gold in the 45-48 kg category finals, the first one for the home team in this edition of the tournament. Here, it is worth mentioning that while the former is a two-time world youth champion, the latter happens to be a two-time Asian Championship bronze medallist.
It was reported that Nitu’s approach since the opening round has been that of attack. Though Altantsetseg retaliation in the second round did unsettle the Indian champ on a couple of occasions, she fought back to win the round with a score of 3:2.
In the final round, Ghanghas kept up her attacking tactics and received a yellow card. Minutes later, her opponent, who was desperate to get back into the contest, received one too. However, the former’s aggressive attitude helped her to retain power in the game. The judges unanimously voted every round in her favour, and she was declared the winner.
Nitu Ghanghas’s journey in the entire tournament was smooth sailing while securing three Referee Stops Contest (RSC) wins*.
She faced Kazakhstan’s Alua Balkibekova in the semi-finals. Alua had defeated Nitu in the quarter-finals of the same tournament last year, thereby ending her journey there. But this year, Ghanghas avenged her defeat by putting up a tough fight and made her way to the finals.
Boora defeated China’s Wang Lina in the 75-81 kg category to give India its second gold of the tournament, on Saturday evening. The former had secured the silver medal in the World championships, 9 years earlier, while the latter was the champion of the 2018 edition.
The second final was a bit different from the first one. India started the first 2 rounds with caution, and held onto her stance for a minute straight before attacking her opponent.
She won them with a 3-2 score. The third round witnessed Wang retaliating, but Boora surprised her with a last-minute throttle to claim the round, and subsequently the gold medal.
Boxing has always been the display of not just power, but also calm, strength, and tactics. It’s so much more than just random punches. Nitu Ghanghas and Saweety Boora became the sixth, and seventh, Indian female players to clinch the title of the World Champion.
Their names get added to the list of eminent people like Mary Kom (6 times World Champion- 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2018), Sarita Devi (2006), Jenny RL (2006), Lekha KC (2006), Nikhat Zareen (2022).
On the final day of the tournament, two Indian girls are scheduled to take on their opponents in two different categories.
Nikhat Zareen (50 kg), the defending champion, will take on Vietnam’s Nguyen Thi Tam, a two-times Asian Championship gold medallist.
On the other hand, Lovlina Borgohain (75 kg) is scheduled to take on two-time Commonwealth medallist, Australia’s Caitlin Parker.
Referee Stop Contests literally means that the referee stops the contest. This happens when the referee stops the round because the player is too gravely injured, or is at risk, and is not in the state to defend themselves. The point, in such a case, is awarded to the opponent.
Image source: IBA photo gallery, edited on CanvaPro
The author is a Gen-Z kid who resorts to writing to vent out about the problematic ways of the world. Having majored in Theatre, English, and Psychology, I take a guilty pleasure in complex read more...
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