Gold for Jyoti, Sarita ends with bronze in Polish boxing tourney

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 on 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 travelling with the team.

Lovlina was beaten by Poland's Karolina Koszewska in a split 1-4 verdict, also called "unfair" by the Indians.

Pooja too was defeated by a local favourite in Agata Kaczmarska, the decision being 2-3. But the team had no issues with that close call.

Earlier the Indian junior boxers produced a terrific performance to sign off with 13 medals -- six gold, six silver and a bronze.

Bharti (46kg), Tingmila Doungel (48kg), Sandeep Kaur (52kg), Neha (54kg), Arshi Khanam (57kg) and Komal (80kg) claimed top honours in their respective categories.

Amisha Bharti (50kg), Sanya negi (60kg), Dinesh Naik (63kg), Sanjay Gunele (66kg), Raj Sahiba (70kg) and Lipakshi (+80kg) settled for silver medals.

The sole bronze in the junior category went to Neha (75kg).