Vijayanagara: Boxers from railways on medal track

Vijayanagara: As many as nine pugilists from Haryana stormed into the semifinals, ensuring themselves medals at the JSW Sports presents 3rd Elite Women’s National Boxing Championships at the Inspire Institute of Sport here on Friday.

They were closely followed by the Railways as eight of their boxers made it to the medal round while All India Police (AIP), had seven of their players with Chandigarh and Punjab, having two pugilists each entering the semifinals in all the 10 categories with other state players just filling the vacant slots.

All top boxers, including world championships participants and medallists — Lovlina Borgohain, Pinki Rani Jangra, Simranjit Kaur, Manisha Moun, Seema Poonia — won their bouts, mostly with RSC verdicts as there were 13 of the contests in the two rings were stopped by the referee, fearing injury to the opponents of these fancied boxers.

Kavita Chahal of AIP in +82 kg category, beat the stuffing out of her Kerala rival Anaswara P.M. to win on points (5:0) while Basanti Chanu (64), Sandhyarani Devi (57) and Preeti Beniwal (60), Nikhat Zareen (51kg) too made the medal grade.