Four Indians confirm medals at Boxing World Championships; Nitu, Nikhat, Saweety and Lovlina enter semis

NEW DELHI: A rampaging Nitu Ghanghas showed the way with her third straight referee stops contest (RSC) victory, as four Indian boxers, including reigning flyweight champion Nikhat Zareen and Tokyo Olympics bronze winner Lovlina Borgohain, assured themselves of at least a bronze each after breezing past their respective opponents in the quarterfinals of the women’s World Championships here on Wednesday.However, the curtains were drawn on the campaign of Sakshi Chaudhary (52kg), Manisha Moun (57), Jaismine Lamboria (60kg) and Nupur Sheoran (+81kg), who lost their last-eight stage bouts in contrasting fashions to bow out of the Worlds after a spirited campaign.Starting the medal rush for India was Birmingham CWG champion Nitu, who defeated Japan's Madoka Wada for yet another RSC win to sail into the semifinals of the women’s 48kg category. Nitu had lost in the quarterfinals of the previous edition of the championships in Istanbul last year and Wednesday's triumph assured the 22-year-old Haryana boxer of her first medal at the Worlds.The two-time World Youth champion in light flyweight was relentless in her counter-attacks and landed a flurry of punches on Wada, a bronze medallist at the 2018 edition of the Worlds in New Delhi, to force the referee to stop the contest in the second round after the Japanese received three standing counts. Nitu won the bout with 43 seconds still left on the clock in the second period."I was careful against her. I initially shed my aggressive approach because she was also a southpaw like me. I was trying to understand her game. In the second round, I attacked her and won by RSC," Nitu later told reporters. Nitu hasn't been able to fight a full three rounds against her opponents so far at the Worlds. When asked whether that would act as a disadvantage going into the semis, the 22-year-old said: "I'll count it as an advantage. Winning all my three bouts by RSC will put my opponents under pressure in the coming bouts."The Indian will now take on the reigning Asian champion and last year's World Championships silver medallist Alua Balkibekova of Kazakhstan in what will be a rematch of the Istanbul Worlds' quarterfinals.After India suffered two back-to-back setbacks in the form of Sakshi (lost 0-5 to China's Wu Yu) and Manisha (lost 1-4 to France's Amina Zidani) following Nitu's stunning win, the 2014 Jeju Island Worlds edition bronze medallist Saweety Boora brought the host nation's campaign back on track with a convincing 5-0 victory against the New Delhi Worlds bronze medallist Viktoria Kebikava of Belarus to close out the afternoon session."The boxer from Belarus was a very good fighter with a world medal to her name and, with both of our strengths including uppercuts being similar, I knew that I would have to fight till the very end. I was a bit tired towards the last round but I kept going for my coach who was constantly motivating from the ringside and my family in the audience, all of whom had high hopes from me. My next bout will definitely be better than this one as I always get better with the number of matches that I play," said the three time Asian medallist. She will be going up against Emma-Sue Greentree of Australia in her semis bout.In the evening session, Nikhat successfully continued her title defence in the 50kg category, scoring a hard-fought 5-2 win over two-time World Championships bronze medallist Chuthamat Raksat of Thailand. Both pugilists were at the top of their game and gave it their all, but it was Nikhat who benefitted from her superior technical and tactical ability to edge ahead after the bout was reviewed. "My strategy today was to win in the first two rounds and then play around in the last. I won the two rounds but it was by split 3:2 decision. So, I aimed to play from a long range in the final round and it worked in the end," she said. Nikhat will face Olympics and Worlds medallist, Ingrit Valencia of Colombia, in the semis.Lovlina also assured herself of at least a third Worlds bronze of her career when she outpunched Mozambique's Adosinda Rady Gramane in the women's 75kg quarterfinals to book her place into the semis. The Indian looked confident throughout the bout and landed accurate punches to seal the win.However, Jaismine and Nupur Sheoran weren't that lucky and lost their respective quarterfinals in the evening session. Jaismine went down rather tamely (0-5) to Colombia's Paola Valdez, while Nupur fought hard till the last round before bowing out of the tournament after sustaining a 3-4 split decision loss against Kazakhstan's Lazzat Kungeibayeva in the +81kg bout.