India’s Nikhat Zareen triumphed the gold medal in the 52kg category at the Women’s World Championship with a victory over Thailand’s Jitpong Jutamas in the fly-weight final in Istanbul, Turkey.
Zareen becomes only the 5th Indian women’s boxer followed by Mary Kom, Sarita Devi, Jenny RL and Lekha KC to triumph a gold at the World Championships.
Zareen, 25, is a former junior youth world champion. Zareen fought against her Thai opponent in the final with magnificently and brought homeland the gold medal. The judges scored the bout 30-27, 29-28, 29-28, 30-27, and 29-28 in the Indian’s pocket.
Zareen was in classy form as she used her technical cleverness and covered to court well to outsmart her brisk opponent. Nikhat managed to astonish all the judges in the first round as she landed far more punches than the Thai boxer.
The second round was tighter and Jitpong earned it 3-2. Requiring to get just one judge on her side in the final round, Nikhat went all in and smashed the door on her opponent to finally record a 5-0 united decision in her favour.
It was also India’s first gold medal since boxing great Mary Kom triumphed it in 2018.
Zareen took full advantage of her long reach and maintained her supremacy versus the Thai boxer, whom she had defeated in the 2019 Thailand Open semi-final—the only meeting between the two, coming her silver medal finish.
Nevertheless, Jutamas tried to fight back in the second round with a counter-attacking show but hardly managed to put any trouble for the speedy Nikhat, who looked in full control.
With Manisha (57kg) and Parveen (63kg) concluding with bronze medals following their semi-finals finish, Indian contingent finished its campaign with 3 medals at the world’s biggest boxing event.
With the addition of 3 medals in Istanbul, India’s overall medal total has augmented to 39, counting 10 gold, 8 silver and 21 bronze, in the 12 versions of the honoured event—third highest after Russia (60) and China (50).
