Tokyo Olympic bronze medallist Lovlina Borgohain made a winning start to her campaign as she and Sakshi Chaudhary moved to the quarter-finals of the Women’s World Championships with dominant victories here on Monday.
Both Sakshi (54kg) and Lovlina (75kg) notched 5-0 unanimous decision wins.
While Lovlina outpunched Mexico’s Vanessa Ortiz, Sakshi got the better of Zhazira Urakbayeva of Kazakhstan to progress to the last-eight stage.
But the most laudable Indian performance of the day came from Preeti (54kg). Though the youngster eventually lost her bout to last year’s 52kg silver medallist Thailand’s Jitpong Jutamas 4-3, the bout was so close that a review had to be taken.
Preeti entered the tournament on the back of a selection row, where her place in the side was questioned as she didn’t win the national championships.
Competing in her new 75kg category, Lovlina, who received a first-round bye, won her opening encounter to walk one step closer to a medal.
“It was my first bout, the boxer was shorter than me. I was not able to follow my strategy to the T. I could have done better,” Lovlina said after her bout.
Hima, Ancy earn gold
Hima Das. File picture
Thiruvananthapuram: Hima Das won the 200m race comfortably in 23.79 seconds while long jumper Ancy Sojan shared the limelight with a best effort of 6.49m in the Indian Grand Prix-1 athletics event here on Monday.
Assam’s Hima beat Aishwarya Kailash Mishra (24.81) of Maharashtra and VK Vismaya (24.82) of Kerala to take the women’s 200m gold at the Laxmibai National College of Physical Education here.
Sojan produced a series of leaps beyond 6.00m and won with a best effort of 6.49m, just past the 6.45m mark laid down as the Asian Games qualifying standard.
The meet though received lukewarm response with few top athletes competing in it. Many events had just three athletes competing.
Haryana’s Krishan Kumar topped the men’s 800m race, clocking 1:47.26, going past the Asian Games qualifying standard of 1:49.05.
Odisha javelin thrower Kishore Kumar produced only two valid tries but his effort of 81.05m was his career best.
PTI
