Nikhat, Lovlina, Nitu and Saweety to punch for gold at Worlds

NEW DELHI: Nikhat Zareen, Lovlina Borgohain, Nitu Ghanghas and Saweety Boora will be buoyed by the home support as they fight hard to change the colour of their medals at the Women’s World Boxing Championships here this weekend.

The four Indian boxers are assured of at least a silver after they pulled off thrilling victories in their respective semifinal bouts on Thursday.

For Nikhat, it’s a chance to become only the second Indian to win the prestigious title more than once after the legendary MC Mary Kom, who has a record six titles to her name.

Nikhat, who has moved down to 50kg from 52kg after the latter was scrapped from the Paris Olympics, has given a good account of herself in the light flyweight category.

The 26-year-old arguably had the hardest path to the final among all Indian pugilists, having to fight strong opponents across five bouts in the highly-contested Olympic category.

And standing between her and the second world title is another fancied opponent -- two-time Asian champion Nguyen Thi Tam of Vietnam.

A technically sound boxer, Nikhat has used her years of experience in the ring and tactics to pull off win after win despite getting little to no time for recovery. She fought three back-to-back bouts on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

The tournament has been punishing on her body. Nikhat confessed she was tired and fatigued in the third round of her quarterfinal bout but kept going.

However, she now has a much-needed two-day break for recovery ahead of her final on Sunday.

The spotlight also returns on Lovlina, who has been able to put behind the underwhelming year. She would have breathed a sigh of relief as she finally broke the bronze medal jinx and qualified for her maiden World’s final.

The Assam boxer has two bronze medals from the 2018 and 2019 editions.

The Tokyo Olympic medallist, who is also competing in a new weight class, moving up from 69kg to the middleweight 75kg, has gotten better with each bout.