Women National Boxing: Kushboo, Pratibha win; top pugilists receive byes

Delhi boxers Kushboo Tokas and Pratibha shone bright, while Andra Pradesh's Jyoti Gorli also scored a hard-fought win on the opening day of the third Elite women's National Boxing Championships here Monday.

Top pugilists, including Pinky Jangra, Nikhat Zarin and Sonia Lather, however, received first-round byes on day one which saw boxers from 31 states and institutions start their campaign at the Inspire Institute of Sport (IIS) here.

In the 48 kg class, Kushboo overcame a technically-sound boxer Sabitro Limboo from Sikkim after a split verdict (3:2).

The opening bout saw both pugilists going all out from round one as they traded blows, trying to hit the target areas to attract the judges.

The second round too was more or less even with both the boxers punching their way to the next round, but what turned things in favour of Kushboo was her fantastic straight ones in the last round.

Taking a cue, Andhra's Jyoti also fought well to repeat the score against Anjali Sharma of Madhya Pradesh in the same category.

It was the Andhra girl who landed more punches on the MP girl which got her the 3:2 verdict in her favour.

There were as many as half a dozen RSC (referee stops contest) decisions on the opening day which witnessed 18 bouts.

In one of the bouts, local favourite Divyani Shukla lost in the 51 kg against Delhi's Prathiba after referee stopped the contest in the first round.

Himachal Pradesh's Pallavi forced the referee stop contest in the first round itself when she landed severe left-right combination punches on her Pudhucherry opponent Sivaranjani Karthikeyan in the same light fly category.

UP's Rajni Singh took two more rounds to end the ordeal of her West Bengal rival Manica Kumar Pandey.

In another interesting bout in 48 kg class, S Kalaivani of Tamil Nadu won a 4:1 verdict against Uttarakhand's Archana Thapa, while Rajasthan's Poonam beat Shruti Sharma in fly class (51 kg).

The referee stopped the contest midway through the second round with Poonam landing a few hard blows which had a staggering effect on Shruti.

The other winners in 51 kg included Deepika Kumari from Madhya Pradesh, Manshi Sharma from UP, Kajal Kumari from Bihar and Diya Bache from Maharashtra -- all winning by favourable 5:0 decisions.

Similarly, Gargi from Chandigarh won an RSC verdict, fighting against Atulya Das of Kerala.