Lovlina Borgohain missed out on a chance of a second Olympic medal as she lost to China's Li Qian at the Paris Olympics on Sunday afternoon.
A win today would have confirmed Lovlina's second Olympic medal [all four semifinalists are awarded medals in boxing] and made her the first Indian to do that, but it was not meant to be as she lost to a familiar foe in Qian.
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The odds were stacked against Lovlina going into the bout, considering she had lost to Qian the last two times they met: in the 2023 Asian Games final and at the Czechia Grand Prix in June. But what would have given Lovlina the belief was the fact that she had beaten Qian enroute her gold medal at the 2023 World Championships.
Lovlina began the bout well as she found her range and maintained her shape. The Indian pulled off a couple of fine left-hook + right-jab combinations, but Li matched her punch for punch. It was a closely contested round that narrowly went the Chinese boxer's way.
Li, who won silver at the Tokyo Olympics, launched a flurry of punches as soon as the bell rang for the second round and caught Lovlina straight in the face. Li didn't do anything special per se, but controlled the pace of the round and Lovlina needed to show intent to convince the judges. She pulled off a neat two-punch combination on Li, but it wasn't enough as the second round also went Li's way. However, Lovlina still had a chance: the bout was all square on four of the judge's cards and only one judge had Li down as the better boxer.
But Lovlina just couldn't find her best when she needed it the most. The Indian landed a few strong jabs at Li's mid-riff, but that wasn't enough to impress the judges. What Li did, though, did. She caught Lovlina in a brilliant 1-2 combination that shook the Indian for a couple of seconds. That did the trick as Li went on to win by points and Indian boxing's barren run at Paris came to an end.
Lovlina, who moved up from the 69kg to 75kg division after the former was dropped from the Olympic program, was among India's top medal hopefuls at the Paris Olympics. She is a World champion and the Asian Games silver medallist in the weight division and came within a win away from becoming one of Indian boxing's GOATs. But in the end, none of those credentials mattered. Lovlina was beaten by a better boxer. Despite two World champions and World's medallists in their roster, Indian boxing returns with zero medals.