Goa will have a chance to add half a dozen gold medals on the penultimate day of the 37th National Games from the boxing arena after six of their boxers registered convincing victories in their respective semi-finals on Wednesday.
National Champion Sanamacha Chanu led the charge of hosts pugilist as she forced the referee to stop the bout in the first round itself against Radhika of Karnataka to make it to the women’s Middleweight category.
Former world youth champion Sakshi Chaudhary also sailed into the final of the women’s light flyweight category after beating Manipur’s Ashalata Chanu 5:0. It was, however, end of the road for Niharika in Light weight category as she went down 0:5 against Olympian Simranjit Kaur of Punjab.
In the men’s category, Akash Gorkha, Rajat, Lokesh and Gaurav Chouhan advanced to the final while AK Zamir Roshan and Sai Ayush were knocked out in the semi-finals.
In the men’s light welter weight category, Akash came up with a convincing 5-0 UD win against Maharashtra’s Yash Raju to set up a summit clash with Olympian Manish Kaushik, playing his first domestic tournament after recovering from a disc injury.
However, it was the super heavy weight category semi-final, that witnessed Goa’s prowess with Gaurav Chouhan knocking out Madhya Pradesh’s Aman Singh to set his date with Chandigarh’s Sawan Gill in the final.
Representing the home side, Rajat (light middle weight) and Lokesh (light heavy weight) recorded identical 5-0 victories against Rajasthan’s Priyadarshi Singh and Sumit Poonia, to make it to the gold medal bouts. While Rajat will take on Akash of the Services in the final, Lokesh will gun for the yellow metal against Sanjay of the Services.
Earlier, it was heartbreak for the home side in the opening contest of the men’s bouts with Zamir Roshan settling for a bronze after suffering a 1-4 split decision loss against Mizoram’s Zoram Muana, while Sai Ayush also met a similar fate after losing the heavy weight category semifinal bout to Kapil Pokharia of the Services.
