Olympic qualifier: Marykom moves into quarterfinal

Qinhuangdao, China: Five times World Champion MC Marykom defeated Marielle Hansen of Norway by a comfortable margin of 26:16 points to move into the quarterfinals of the 51-kg category in the 7th AIBA World Women Boxing Championships, which is also an Olympic qualifying event at Qinhuangdao, China on Tuesday.

Marykom, who is the seventh seed at the Championships, will now meet second seed Nicola Adams of England in the evening of May 16. The English girl was the silver medalist at the 6th AIBA World Championships at Barbados in 2010 when she had then lost to Ren Cancan of China in the finals. However last month Marykom had comprehensively beaten Ren Cancan in the Asian Championships at Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and hence holds the psychological advantage over Nicola Adams.

In the other Olympic weight category of 60 kgs, playing in the Blue corner Sarita Devi lost to Natasha Jonas of England on points 25:22. Sarita was leading by a score of 3:4 points at the end of round 1. At the end of round 2 the score was still in favour of Sarita at 9:10 pts. In round 3 the English boxer equalised at 17:17 pts and went on to win the bout at the end of round 4 by 3 points at 25:22. The hard fight against Tatar Gulsum of Turkey did tell on Sarita’s performance as she seemed to be losing steam towards the later half of the fourth round.

However she played brilliantly in the first 3 rounds and the Indian camp was under the impression that she will pull it off this time also but that was not to be. However all is still not lost for Sarita as she has an outside chance of qualifying if Natasha Jonas to whom she lost goes on to win the finals of this World Championship.

In the 48 kg, Pinki Jangra was simply ravaging as she hammered her Romanian opponent into submission by a big margin of 26:16 pts. At the end of round 1 she was ahead on points 3:1, which she increased to 12:7 by the end of round 2. Although the Romanian boxer was taller than Pinki, she played cleverly and intelligently to outwit her opponent and score at will and end round 3 at 21:13 pts. Pinki continued to attack in round 4 also and notched up additional points to win the bout at a score of 26:16 pts. She now meets second seed Svetlana Gnevanova of Russia in the afternoon session of May 16.

In the 64-kg, Meena Rani defeated Marija Stojanovic of Serbia on points 21:9. At the end of round 1, Meena was leading by 3:1 points which she consolidated to 10:3 by the end of round 2. In the 3rd round, Meena punched at will and went on to increase the lead to 17:8 and ended the bout at the end of 4th round with a score of 21:9 pts. She now meets second seed Mikaela Mayer of USA in the evening session of 16 May 2012.

There are five Indian boxers left in the fray at the quarter final stage of the AIBA World Women Boxing Championships. Pinky Jangra (48 kgs), Marykom (51 kgs), Meena Rani (64 kg), Jenny RL (81 kgs), Kavita Chahal (+81 kgs).