Nagoya, Oct 3:
Indian boxer Lovlina Borgohain had planned to walk away from the sport after the 2024 Paris Olympics, but the disappointment of returning without a medal prompted her to continue her career. Two years later, the decision has paid off, with the Assam boxer winning her maiden Asian Games gold medal in Nagoya on Friday.
The 29-year-old defeated China’s Ziyi Bao by a unanimous 5-0 decision in the women’s 75kg final on her birthday. The victory ended India’s 12-year wait for a women’s Asian Games boxing champion and also allowed Lovlina to upgrade the silver medal she won at the previous edition of the Games.
“It was a tough year for me. I wanted to quit boxing. But I continued. I had to change the colour of my medal. It was very important. More important than that is that I continued,” Lovlina said after her victory.
Lovlina had won a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and had entered the Paris Games with high expectations. However, she returned from Paris without a medal. Following the Olympics, she took a year-long break before returning to international competition.
Her comeback did not immediately produce the results she wanted. She suffered a second-round exit at last year’s World Championships and later skipped the World Boxing Cup final. At this year’s Commonwealth Games, she was one of only two Indian women boxers who could not win gold, settling for silver.
The Commonwealth Games result continued to bother her, making the Asian Games gold particularly significant. “I was not happy about winning the silver medal at the Commonwealth Games. But, there are a lot of things in an athlete’s life: losses, injuries. You have to handle a lot of things. This gold medal was very important to me,” she said.
Lovlina said she was still coming to terms with the significance of her victory immediately after the final. “That is how I continued. I am feeling good. I don’t know how to celebrate my gold. It has just ended. I need some time to accept that I have won. I am feeling very good,” she said.
The triumph also made Lovlina only the second Indian woman boxer after legendary MC Mary Kom to win an Asian Games gold medal. Her victory came in Japan, a country she considers particularly fortunate for her career.
“I have to be strong and win. I was very positive about everything. Japan is very lucky for me. I was always thinking about winning,” Lovlina said.
Lovlina also reflected on the difference between the boxer she was in her younger days and the athlete she has become. She said a lack of confidence had once held her back and that she would tell her younger self to believe in her abilities.
“I had no confidence at that time, so if I had the chance to talk to my younger self I would tell her, ‘You are confident, you are the best’. Now, I have a medal in every competition,” she said.