India finishes with 12 medals at Asian Youth Boxing Championships

India enjoyed a gold shower at the Asian Youth Boxing Championships with as many as five of the country’s women finalists took the top honours while two men walked away with silver medals on Sunday.

All the women pugilists Naorem Chanu (51kg), Vinka (64kg), Sanamacha Chanu (75kg), Poonam (54kg), and Sushma (81kg) grabbed the gold medal. Among men, Selay Soy (49kg) and Ankit Narwal (60kg) held off stiff competition during their respective bouts but narrowly missed out on the gold in the end.

India finished their campaign with a rich haul of 12 medals in the event, with a total of five bronze medals from Arundhati Choudhury (69kg), Komalpreet Kaur (+81kg), Jaismine (57kg), Satender Singh (91kg) and Aman (+91kg).

Silver-medallist Soy responded in style but went down to Kazakhstan’s Bazarbay Ullu Mukhamedsayfi to settle for the second position. Narwal, too, caused an upset after being defeated by Reito Tsutsume of Japan.

It was a spectacular flourish for Poonam who defeated Weiqi Cai of China only to open India’s gold kitty, later Sushma added another by prevailing over her Kazakhstan opponent Bakytzhankyzy. In a similar fashion, Naorem Chanu managed to overpower another Kazakh Anel Barkyah. While Vinka triumphed over China’s Haini Nulataiali, her counterpart Sanamacha crushed her Uzbekistan challenge Navbakhor Khamidova.