Nikhat Zareen capped off a dominant run in the 2022 IBA Women’s World Championships in Istanbul by defeating Thailand’s Jitpong Jutamas in the 52kg final to secure India’s first gold medal of the competition.
In the process, Telangana native Zareen became only the fifth Indian female boxer to win gold at the World Championships. Zareen was once again dominant in the final against the Thai pugilist as she pulled off a unanimous 5-0 victory.
Zareen, who was also crowned the Youth World Champion earlier in her career, had won all her bouts by a similar margin in her run to gold, having defeated Brazil’s Caroline De Almeida in the semis earlier.
Six-time world champion and 2012 Olympic bronze medallist MC Mary Kom is among the four other Indian women to have won gold at the elite competition, the most recent of those victories coming in 2018 in New Delhi. The other Indian winners are L Sarita Devi, Jenny RL and Lekha C.
Besides Nikhat, Manisha Moun (57kg) and Parveen Hooda (63kg) collected bronze after losing their semi-final bouts to Irma Testa and Amy Broadhurst respectively.
Living up to the expectations, Nikhat thrashed Jutamas without breaking a sweat in the 52kg final with judges scoring the bout 30-27, 29-28, 29-28, 30-27, 29-28 in the Indian’s favour.
Nikhat got off to a lively start and hit some sharp punches to quickly take the upper hand in the opening three minutes against confident Jutamas, who came into the match defeating the three-time World Championships medallist Kazakhstan’s Zhaina Shekerbekova.
The 25-year-old Indian took full advantage of her long reach and maintained her dominance against the Thai boxer, whom she had beaten in the 2019 Thailand Open semi-final–the only meeting between the two, enroute her silver medal finish.
Jutamas tried to fight back in the second round with a counter-attacking display but hardly managed to cause any trouble for the swift-moving Nikhat, who looked in complete control.
Hitting straight, clear and powerful punches proved to be a boon as Nikhat threw caution to the wind in the final round and kept attacking relentlessly before securing the gold quite comfortably.
The tournament witnessed exciting competition in presence of record 310 boxers from 73 countries and also marked the 20th anniversary of the Women’s World Championships.
Out of 12 participating Indian boxers, eight made it to the quarter-finals in this year’s tournament — the joint highest alongside Turkey.
With the addition of three medals in Istanbul, India’s overall medal tally in World Women’s Boxing Championships has gone up to 39, including 10 gold, eight silver and 21 bronze in the 12 editions of the prestigious event. This is third highest behind Russia (60) and China (50). (First Post)
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