Nikhat Zareen of India won the gold medal in the Women’s World Boxing Championships after claiming victory over Jitpong Jutamas of Thailand in the 52 kilogramme final.
Nikhat Zareen of India took home the gold medal at the Women’s World Boxing Championships.
Nikhat Zareen of India won the gold medal in the Women’s World Boxing Championships after claiming victory over Jitpong Jutamas of Thailand in the 52 kilogramme final.
Nikhat Zareen of India defeated Jitpong Jutamas of Thailand to win the women’s fly-weight final competition at the Women’s World Championship on Thursday in Istanbul, Turkey. With this victory, Zareen took home the gold medal in the 52 kilogramme division. As a result, Zareen is only the fifth Indian woman boxer to ever win a gold medal at the World Championships, following in the footsteps of Mary Kom, Sarita Devi, Jenny RL, and Lekha KC. Zareen, now 25 years old, won the world championship for junior athletes in the past. Zareen displayed outstanding fighting skills in the championship match against her opponent from Thailand, bringing home the gold medal. The fight was decided in favour of the Indian by the judges’ scores of 30-27, 29-28, 30-27, and 29-28 respectively.
Zareen was in good form as she outwitted her quick-footed opponent by making excellent use of her technical ability and covering the court effectively. As a result of Nikhat landing significantly more blows than the Thai boxer did during the first round of competition, she was able to win over all of the judges. Jitpong won the match by a score of 3-2 after a second round that was much closer. Nikhat went all in and slammed the door on her opponent in the final round, which ultimately led to a 5-0 unanimous decision being recorded in her favour. She had entered the round needing to win the support of just one judge.
Additionally, it was India’s first gold medal since the legendary boxer Mary Kom took the title in 2018.
Nikhat got off to a lively start and hit some sharp punches to quickly take the upper hand in the opening three minutes against a confident Jutamas. Jutamas came into the match having defeated the three-time World Championships medallist from Kazakhstan, Zhaina Shekerbekova. Nikhat was able to quickly take the upper hand in the opening three minutes.
The Indian boxer, who is 25 years old, made full use of her long reach and maintained her domination over the Thai opponent, who she had previously defeated in the semi-finals of the 2019 Thailand Open (the only time the two had competed against each other), on her way to finishing in second place.
However, Jutamas tried to fight back in the second round with a counter-attacking show, but he hardly managed to cause any trouble for the quick-moving Nikhat, who appeared to be in complete control of the situation.
Nikhat threw caution to the wind in the final round and kept fighting fiercely before securing the gold rather handily. He did this by hitting his opponent with straight and clear punches, and his strength proved to be a vital component in the fight.
Manisha (57kg) and Parveen (63kg) both finished their bouts in the semi-finals with bronze medals, bringing the total number of medals won by the Indian contingent at the world’s largest boxing event to three. This year’s competition featured a record number of 310 boxers from 73 countries and celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Women’s World Championships. Manisha won the bronze medal in the 57 kilogramme weight class, and Parveen won bronze in the
This year’s competition had a total of 12 boxers from India, with eight of them advancing to the quarter-final round. This number is tied for the highest with Turkey.
With the addition of three medals in Istanbul, India’s overall medal count in the 12 editions of the prestigious event has gone up to 39, comprising 10 gold, eight silver, and 21 bronze. This places India in third place behind Russia (60) and China (100), respectively (50).
