New Delhi: Jyoti Gulia Saturday picked up India’s lone gold medal in the youth category of the Silesian Open Boxing Tournament for women in which the juniors ruled with 13 medals and senior pro L Sarita Devi (60kg) ended with a bronze in Gliwice, Poland.
Jyoti, a former world youth champion and India’s only boxer to have qualified for next month’s Youth Olympic Games in Argentina, out-classed Poland’s Tatiana Pluta in just the second round of her final bout to clinch gold. The 17-year-old connected some lusty right hooks and straight punches to force three standing eight counts on her rival, two of them in the opening three minutes.
By the time the third eight-count came about, the referee decided that the local favourite had taken enough of a thrashing and awarded the bout to Jyoti.
Earlier, former World Champion Sarita signed off with a bronze medal in the senior category. Sarita, also a multiple-time Asian champion a former Asian bronze-medallist, was joined by Lovlina Borgohain (69kg) and Pooja Rani (81kg) in the list of those whose campaign came to an end in the semifinals Friday.
Sarita lost 0-5 to Kazakhstan’s Karina Ibragimova, a decision which the Indian contingent felt did not reflect fairly on the contest. “It was a controversial decision. Sarita was clearly better but judges did not rule in her favour, even the crowd got behind her after the loss because everyone could see,” said one of the coaches.
