Olympic Qualifiers: Mary Kom settles for bronze, Vikas Krishan reaches final

Sachin Kumar and Manish Kaushik will be in action for Olympic quotas.

Six-time world champion Mary Kom (51kg) and World Championships silver medallist Amit Panghal (52kg) had a bad outing in the ongoing Asian/Oceanian Olympic Qualifiers as they lost their respective bouts to settle for a bronze medal.

Lovlina Borgohain (69kg) and Pooja Rani (75kg) also disappointed Indian fans at the ongoing tournament in Amman, Jordan. However, all four boxers have already qualified for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics.

[KH_ADWORDS type="4" align="center"][/KH_ADWORDS]

Commonwealth Games gold medallist Vikas Krishan (69kg) and former World Championships bronze medallist Simranjit Kaur (60kg) showed a lot of determination in advancing to the final of the qualifiers as Sachin Kumar (81kg) won the first of his two box-off bouts to keep India in the hunt for the highest-ever Olympic quota haul.

Indian boxers have so far dominated the Asian Qualifiers by bagging eight quotas. India currently shares the top position with Kazakhstan out of 10 nations with chances of topping their 2012 haul of eight quotas as Sachin Kumar and Manish Kaushik (63kg) are still in contention due to their box-off opportunities.

Indian pugilists, who failed in their quest at the Asian Qualifiers, will get one more opportunity to realize their Olympic dream at the World Qualifiers set to be held in Paris in May.

[KH_ADWORDS type="3" align="center"][/KH_ADWORDS]

Krishan’s steely resolve stood out on a day of mixed fortunes for the Indian contingent. Despite suffering a cut below his left eyebrow, the former Asian Games gold medallist refused to bow out.

He gave his all to knock out the second seed and World Championships bronze medallist Ablaikhan Zhussupov of Kazakhstan in a 3-2 verdict. Krishan will now face Eishaih Hussein of Jordan in the final.

Oozing tactical brilliance, Simranjit was able to overcome the challenge posed by Chinese Taipei’s Asian Championships silver medallist Shih-Yi Wu and secured a 4-1 win to set up a final showdown with former two-time Asian champion Oh Yeon Ji of South Korea.

A day after booking her second appearance at the Olympics, Mary Kom put up a gritty fight against the reigning Asian Games champion Yuan Chang but the Chinese prevailed 3-2 in a closely-contested bout.

[KH_RELATED_NEWS title="Related News|Article continues below "][/KH_RELATED_NEWS]

In the other bouts of the day, Panghal went down to Rio Olympic bronze medallist Jianguan Hu of China 2-3, having beaten him at the 2019 Asian Championships.

Two-time World Championships bronze medallist Lovlina was blanked 0-5 by China’s Hong Gu in her semi-final. Asian champion Pooja Rani (75kg) suffered the same fate at the hands of Olympic bronze medallist Qian Li of China.

Sachin Kumar (81 kg) defeated Manh Cuong Nguyen of Vietnam 4-1 in the first box-off bout and will next face Tajikistan's Shabbos Negmatulloev in the final box-off bout for the Olympic quota.