The moment the boxing bout ended, Lovlina Borgohain flashed a smile. The customary greetings with her rival’s corner over, she went to the blue corner.
A hug with the coach, and then Lovlina raised her hands as the North Paris Arena erupted in joy. She then made a brisk walk down the hall even as the deafening applause — chants of “India India” — were reverberating across the arena.
Lovlina did not wait at the mixed zone to answer questions from the waiting media. Probably, she had the impending quarter-final bout in her mind. The Tokyo Olympic Games bronze medallist began her quest for a medal with a no-nonsense 5-0 win over Norway’s Sunniva Hofstad and now faces China’s world No. 1 Li Qian in the last-eight stage on August 4.
A win on Sunday will ensure a bronze for the 26-year-old Assam-born boxer. Two medals in consecutive Olympic Games, that will be unprecedented in Indian boxing, more so since Lovlina is a newcomer in the 75kg category.
With the 69kg scrapped from Paris 2024, Lovlina was forced to move up to the 75kg class to compete in an Olympic category. On Wednesday, she accounted for the Norwegian who has been fighting in this category for the past four years.
Hofstad was more keen to draw her into a slugfest but Lovlina was calm and composed and smartly maintained a distance to land clean blows on the counter. She dealt with plenty of clinching by the former junior world champion.
Hofstad also came across the busier of the two boxers, complete with a perilously low guard. Lovlina was the superior boxer in the opening six minutes and all five judges ruled their decision in her favour.
“She played intelligently. I was expecting her to be more on the backfoot but Lovlina caught me off guard coming out on the attack mode. I had to change my strategy. In the end, it did not work well for me,” Hofstad, 20, said at the mixed zone. True. Lovlina attacked Hofstad with precision by drawing her in.
Lovlina has been handed a tough draw but the wiry pugilist has shown the ability to rise above it in her past performances. In Tokyo she got the better of world champion Chen Nien-Chin in the quarter finals to secure herself
a bronze.
Later, in the opening round of the men’s 71kg bout, Nishant Dev got the better of Jose Gabriel Rodriguez of Ecuador, advancing to the quarter-final with a 3-2 win.
Among the other boxers, two-time world champion Nikhat Zareen will face reigning world champion Wu Yu of China in the women’s 50kg round-of-16 on Thursday.
Nikhat, unseeded here, has a mountain to climb and if she manages to beat the Chinese it will be a big boost in her quest for the maiden Olympic medal.
“Both Lovlina and Nikhat have tough opponents. Let’s see how it goes,” Boxing Federation of India president Ajay Singh told The Telegraph.
