Indian boxers win 5 gold to finish with 12 medals at Asian Youth Championship

Indian boxers clinched five gold medals to finish their campaign on a high with a rich haul of 12 medals at the ASBC Asian Youth Men and Women Boxing Championships in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia on Sunday. The final day turned out to be flawless for the women pugilists, who won all five gold on offer while the men had to be content with a couple of silver medals.

Babyrojisana Naorem Chanu (51kg) and Sanamacha Chanu Thokchom (75kg), both hailing from Manipur, finished on the top podium along with Rohtak’s Vinka (64kg) and Sushma (81kg), apart from Hisar’s Poonam (54kg). Among the men, Selay Soy (49kg) and Ankit Narwal (60kg) settled for silver.

The Manipur girls, both of whom train at MC Mary Kom’s academy, did not put a foot wrong and swatted away their opponents with a good combination of pace and power-packed punches. While Naorem Chanu blanked Anel Sakysh of Kazakhstan 5-0, Sanamachu Chanu beat Uzbekistan’s Navbakhor Khamidova by the same scoreline.

Sushma put up an equally impressive show to secure a 5-0 win over Kazakhstan's Arailym Bakytzhankyzy. Vinka outpunched China’s Haini Mulataiali 4-1 to take home the gold while Poonam endured some early resistance from China's Weiqi Cai but rebounded to win 4-1.

Among the men, Selay Soy went down to Kazakhstan's Bazarbay Ullu Mukhammedsabyr 1-4 and Ankit Narwal was dealt a 5-0 blow by Japan’s Reito Tsutsumi.

Earlier, Indian boxers had added five bronze medals to their tally. From the women boxers, Arundhati Choudhary (69kg), Komalpreet Kaur (+81kg), Jaismine (57kg) bagged bronze while Satender Singh (91kg) and Aman (+91kg) won the bronze from the men.