NEW DELHI – The girls snared half a dozen of them as India ended its Asian Junior Boxing Championship campaign in Dubai with a whopping eight gold medals besides bagging five silver and six bronze.
Out of the 10 girls in the finals, six ended with gold medals, while four others claimed silver finishes. Among the boys, three were in the finals and two of them signed off with gold medals.
India’s tally of gold medals was equal to traditional powerhouse Kazakhstan and just one less than another heavyweight Uzbekistan.
Rohit Chamoli (48kg) and Bharat Joon (+81kg), Vishu Rathee (girls 48kg), and Tanu (girls 52kg) were the early gold-medallists before others joined in late night bouts on Sunday.
Nikita Chand (60kg), Mahi Raghav (63kg), Pranjal Yadav (75kg) and Kirti (+81kg) picked up their yellow metals in the later bouts.
Kirti won against Shugyla Rysebek of Kazakhstan in a 4-1 split decision. Raghav (63kg) also fetched a split 3-2 decision against Algerim Kabdolda of Kazakhstan.
Chand outperformed Assem Tanatar of Kazakhstan, while Yadav defeated another Kazakh in Akzhan in a spilt 4-1 decision.
Rudrika (70kg) went down 1-4 against Uzbek Oysha Toirova and Sanjana (81kg) endured a 0-5 loss against Kazakhstan’s Umit Abilkaiyr.
Aanchal Saini (57kg) also went down 0-5 against Ulzhan Sarsenbek of Kazakhstan to end with a silver medal.
India’s six bronze medals came after Devika Ghorpade (50kg), Aarzoo (54kg) and Supriya Rawat (66kg) lost in the girls semi-finals while Ashish (54kg), Anshul (57kg) and Ankush (66kg) exited in the boys’ last-four stage.
In the last Asian Junior Championships held in 2019 in Fujairah, UAE, India had finished third with 21 medals (six gold, nine silver and six bronze).
At the ongoing edition, the gold medallists in the junior category were awarded with USD 4,000 while USD 2,000 and 1,000 were given to the silver and bronze medal winners respectively.
On Monday, 15 Indian boxers will fight for gold in the youth event.
Nivedita (48kg), Tamanna (50kg), Simran (52kg), Neha (54kg), Preeti (57kg), Preeti Dahiya (60kg), Khushi (63kg), Sneha (66kg), Khushi (75kg), Tanishbir (81kg) will be in action in the women’s category.
Among the men, Vishvanath Suresh (48kg), Bishwamitra Chongtham (51kg), Jaydeep Rawat (71kg), Vanshaj (64kg) and Vishal (80kg) will fight their finals.
