Asian Games: Birthday girl Lovlina clinches historic gold in women's 75kg boxing

NISHIO — India ace Lovlina Borgohain added an illustrious feather to her growing boxing medal cabinet as she celebrated her 29th birthday on Friday with a historic gold medal in the women's 75kg at the Asian Games 2026.

The Tokyo Olympic bronze medallist defeated China's Bao Ziyi by a unanimous decision of 5-0 at the Nishio Gymnasium here to become just the second Indian woman boxer to win a gold medal at the Asiad, joining the legendary Mary Kom in the elite list.

Lovlina, who won a silver at the Commonwealth Games 2026, dominated the bout against the Chinese boxer in the final as she won the contest with four judges ruling 29-28 in her favour and one giving her a 30-27 card.

She won a closely fought first round 3-2 before bossing the next two rounds to win the second and third by 4-1 margins as she looked the superior boxer of the two.

Lovlina had made her way to the final after edging past Kazakhstan's Natalya Bogdanova in a closely fought semifinal. She prevailed 3-2 on a split decision after recovering from a narrow deficit in the opening round.

She had earlier assured herself of a medal at the ongoing Asian Games with a strong 5-0 win in the quarterfinal against Korea's Seong Suyeon.

This is India's first boxing gold at the ongoing Games, and there were two more boxers who made their way into the final. Ankush and Parveen Hooda made it to the finals of their respective category as well.

Ankush registered a brilliant come-from-behind win over Erkinboev in the semifinal by 4-1. Ankush was trailing 1-4 at the end of the first round but bagged a closely fought second round 3-2 with his punches landing well.