Kazakhstan’s Astana Indian boxer Jaismine Lamboria comes very close to winning a gold at the World Championships after winning the women’s 57kg round of 16 in a convincing way. Jaismine beat two-time Brazilian Olympian Jucielen Cerqueira Romeu by a score of 5-0 in a rematch of their gold medal fight in the Astana event in July.
At initially, both combatants were very careful, but Jaismine ended the first round with a tremendous finish, throwing a lot of blows at the end. Romeu came out more aggressively in the second round, but the Indian boxer demonstrated that she was better at strategy. Jaismine used her height and reach to her advantage to reply from a distance, which made her opponent angry. She kept her cool in the last round and landed a series of crisp scoring shots that sealed the deal and brought her one step closer to a medal.
Jaismine is now only one win away from a podium finish at the World Championships after this triumph. In the quarterfinals, she will face Khumorabonu Mamajonova of Uzbekistan, the Asian Under-22 champion.
Abhinash Jamwal did well in the men’s draw. He moved on to the 65kg round of 16 after beating Mexico’s Hugo Barron 5-0.
But two other Indian fighters were disappointed at the conclusion of the day. In their round of 16 matches, both Sanamacha Chanu (70 kg) and Sakshi Chaudhary (54 kg) were knocked out. Natalya Bogdanova of Kazakhstan beat Sanamacha, and Sakshi had a tough time against Hatice Akbas of Turkey, who won a silver medal at the Paris Olympics and two medals at the World Championships.
Akbas was better at the game than Sakshi, which showed how little experience she had on the world stage. She lost two points in the first round for punching after the referee had called a break, which was a bad move on her part. Sakshi was behind on all scorecards since she couldn’t make her presence felt. Even though she had some great moments in the last round, such landing a strong shot just at the bell, the fight was already over, with Akbas’s clean and powerful punches dominating the whole thing.