Tokyo: Boxer Lovlina Borgohain has lost the semifinals in Tokyo, against Turkey’s Busenaz Surmeneli to settle for a bronze medal in her Olympics debut.
The judges unanimously awarded 5 points to the Turk. Lovlina started out positively with well executed upper-cuts, but the Turkish pugilist came back with some good punches towards the end to win the first round.
It was Busenaz show from the second round as she both landed powerful punches and also had her guard up when Lovlina looked to connect a few jabs. Busenaz was raining punches in round 2 putting her in a comfortable pedestal forcing Lovlina to retaliate and the Turk guarded herself well.
After both the rounds have gone to Busenaz’s side, Lovlina was forced to knock her out in order to stay in the medal hunt, which she failed to do. Aided by an exceptional footwork and some well-connected punches saw Busenaz through to the final bout and Lovlina had to settle for the bronze medal.
Towards glory
Indian grappler Ravi Kumar Dahiya won his opening-round bout by technical superiority against Colombia’s Oscar Tigreros to secure a quarterfinal spot in the 57kg quarterfinals at the Tokyo Olympics on Wednesday.
Competing in the Round-of-16 bout against the Colombian wrestler, the 23-year-old Dahiya, who is making his Olympic debut at the Makuhari Messe Hall in Chiba, showed no nerves as he dominated the bout to win by technical superiority (13-2).
‘Need to improve in finals’
Into the finals with a ‘perfect throw’, trailblazing javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra on Wednesday said he will need the same performance with a higher score to be in contention for
India’s maiden track-and-field medal at the Olympic Games here. The 23-year-old Chopra became the first Indian javelin thrower to enter the finals of the Games with a big throw of 86.65m that put him on the top of the Group A qualification.
He took just a few seconds to make that cut, sending the spear well past the direct qualifying mark of 83.50m in his first attempt.
‘I am at my first Olympic Games, and I feel very good. In warm-up my performance wasn’t so good, but then (in the qualifying round) my first throw had a good angle, and was a perfect throw,’ Chopra said after his event.
A farmer’s son from Khandra village near Panipat in Haryana who took up athletics to shed flab, Chopra left the javelin arena after his first throw, having secured his place in the final easily.
He reiterated that the build-up to the Olympics was difficult due to the COVID-19 pandemic. ”Last year was very difficult, because we were ready for the Olympics, and due to coronavirus everything was closed. We felt a little sad, but after we started training regularly. We need to train every day, so it was difficult.