India’s sole boxer to be assured a medal at the Tokyo Olympics, Lovlina Borgohain put up a tough fight in her semi-final bout against reigning world champion and also the world number one Busenaz Surmeneli of Turkey, but eventually was beaten 5-0.
In the opening round, Lovlina Borgohain began wonderfully well, throwing scoring punches with a calculated approach. In fact, the 23-year-old Indian dominated the opening round only to lose the initiative in the last 30 seconds when Surmeneli came up with a flurry of punches. Lovlina got a warning as well for punching her opponent when the referee had paused the bout. The judges certainly saw the last 30 seconds and awarded the round to the Turkish top seed.
In the second round, Lovlina got a deducted point, and another unanimous decision for Surmeneli.
In the final round, the Indian boxer Lovlina Borgohain kept on going and even connected a jab, but Busenaz, though, gave it back and landed another couple of left hooks to secure the third round as well.
Busenaz Surmeneli has been dominating in the welterweight category for the past couple of years. She has won five medals apart from the world championship, one and four out of those five medals have been gold.
urmeneli began the bout by attacking Lovlina with a barrage of punches. The referee warned Lovlina on a couple of occasions as she continued landing punches despite the referee calling stop. At the end of the second round, the judges deducted one point from Lovlina’s tally as she continued to make the same mistake.
Lovlina has become only the third Indian boxer to ensure a podium finish at the showpiece after Vijender Singh (2008) and M C Mary Kom (2012).
Lovlina had defeated Chinere Taipei’s Nien-Chin Chen to reach women’s welterweight quarter-finals before.
