Lovlina Borgohain Changes the Colour
On her 29th birthday, India’s Tokyo bronze medallist beat China’s reigning Asian champion, Bao Ziyi, 5–0 for the women’s 75kg title in Aichi–Nagoya. Three years after a silver in Hangzhou, and 62 days after another in Glasgow, she has a medal from every major event in the sport.
Lovlina Borgohain turned 29 on Friday and won the Asian Games title she lost three years ago. In the women’s 75kg final at the Nishio Gymnasium she beat China’s Bao Ziyi on all five judges’ cards: four had it 29–28 and one 30–27, IANS reported. By The Times of India’s round-by-round account she took the first round 3–2, the second 4–1 and the third 4–1. It was India’s 12th gold of the Games.
Bao was no soft opponent. She is 20, the 2024 world youth champion at 75kg and, since April, the Asian champion: in Ulaanbaatar she took the continental title on a split decision over Uzbekistan’s Aziza Zokirova, the boxer who had beaten Borgohain 5–0 in the semi-finals there. UNI reported that Bao came into Friday’s final unbeaten in 14 amateur bouts.
The gold caps a full set. Borgohain already had an Olympic bronze from Tokyo, two world bronzes and a world title, an Asian Games silver, gold and bronzes at the Asian Championships and, since 1 August, a Commonwealth Games silver. “Now, I have a medal in every competition,” she told PTI after the final. She is the second Indian woman to win Asian Games boxing gold, 12 years after Mary Kom at Incheon, and hers was India’s first Asian Games boxing gold of any kind since Amit Panghal’s at Jakarta in 2018. It came from a boxer who says she nearly walked away from the sport after Paris.
Three rounds, five judges
Bao started the final as the busier boxer. ANI’s account has her opening with flurries and pressing early, and Borgohain answering with counters; that round went to Borgohain 3–2. UNI described Bao landing uppercuts in the second before Borgohain finished it the stronger, and four of the five judges gave her the round. Four of the five gave her the third, too.
The harder fight came on Wednesday. Kazakhstan’s Natalya Bogdanova is the reigning world champion at 70kg: she won the title at the inaugural World Boxing Championships in Liverpool last year, 5–0 over Australia’s Lekeisha Pergoliti in the final. She took the first round of the semi-final 3–2. Borgohain won the second on all five cards. PTI’s account gives the third to Bogdanova, 3–2, too, but Borgohain had done enough to lead on three of the five cards and won on a split. “I lost the first round, and the second round I won 5–0,” she said afterwards, in remarks carried by PTI. The win made her the first Indian woman boxer to reach two Asian Games finals in a row.
Her campaign had begun only on Monday, with a quarter-final: a unanimous win over South Korea’s Seong Suyeon that assured her a second successive Asian Games medal. Three wins, then, for the title.
Bao took silver. The bronzes went to Bogdanova and Vietnam’s Luu Diem Quynh, whom Bao beat 5–0 in the other semi-final on Wednesday morning.
Hers was the first of three Indian boxing golds on Friday. Later that day Parveen Hooda won the women’s 65kg final 3–2 against Chinese Taipei’s Chen Nien-chin, and Ankush Panghal won the men’s 80kg final against South Korea’s Kim Min-seong. India finish the boxing tournament with six medals — the three golds, and bronzes for Priya Ghanghas, Kapil Pokhariya and Narender Berwal. In Hangzhou, Borgohain’s silver had been India’s best.
Three daughters in Baromukhia
Borgohain was born on 2 October 1997 in Baromukhia, a village of about 2,000 people in Assam’s Golaghat district, the youngest of three daughters of Tiken and Mamoni Borgohain. Her father has been described as a small businessman. “I remember how in the village they would often pity my parents, with no sons and three daughters,” she told The Indian Express after her Arjuna Award in 2020 — the line ISJ’s carousel built its cover around.
Her elder sisters, the twins Licha and Lima, were national-level kickboxers, and both now serve in India’s central armed police forces, one in the CISF and one in the BSF. Borgohain followed them into Muay Thai at 13. Boxing came by way of her father and a newspaper. “He brought us some sweets and it was wrapped in a newspaper. There was something written about Muhammad Ali,” she has recalled to the Sports Authority of India.
What turned the interest into a career was a state system doing what it is meant to do. In 2012 Padum Boro, a SAI coach from Guwahati, held boxing trials at her high school, spotted her and asked whether she wanted to train with SAI in Guwahati. Muay Thai was not an Olympic sport. Boxing was. From there the route ran through SAI’s centre in Guwahati, national camps and the coaching of Sandhya Gurung, who is listed as her coach on her Asian Games profile.
The 69kg years
Her first senior medals came at 69kg, and they were bronze. She was third at the Asian Championships in Ho Chi Minh City in 2017, lost a quarter-final to England’s Sandy Ryan at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, and then took bronze at consecutive World Championships: in New Delhi in November 2018, where she lost her semi-final to Chinese Taipei’s Chen Nien-chin, the eventual champion, and in Ulan-Ude in 2019, where China’s Yang Liu beat her 3–2.
She qualified for Tokyo in Amman in March 2020 by beating Uzbekistan’s Maftunakhon Melieva 5–0. Then the pandemic intervened. On 15 October 2020 she tested positive for Covid-19 as India’s boxers were about to leave for a 52-day training and competition trip to Europe, and she missed it.
In Tokyo she beat Germany’s Nadine Apetz 3–2 and then, on 30 July 2021, Chen Nien-chin 4–1 in the quarter-final. “I had lost four times against my opponent earlier, I wanted to prove myself,” she said, as reported by ANI. On 4 August Turkey’s Busenaz Sürmeneli, who went on to win the gold, beat her 5–0 in the semi-final. The bronze was India’s third Olympic boxing medal, after Vijender Singh’s in 2008 and Mary Kom’s in 2012, and the first Olympic medal by an athlete from Assam. On the day it was assured, a local politician announced that the potholed 600-metre track to her family’s home would be repaired; within a week the work had begun.
Up a weight, and a world title
The women’s weight classes were redrawn for Paris and 69kg disappeared, so Borgohain moved up to 75kg. The change paid off quickly. At the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham she again went out in the quarter-finals, but that November in Amman she won her first Asian title, beating Uzbekistan’s Sokhiba Ruzmetova 5–0 in the final. In New Delhi on 26 March 2023 she became world champion, beating Australia’s Caitlin Parker 5–2 in a final that went to a bout review before the decision stood.
Hangzhou that October brought both her Paris place and her first Asian Games final: a 5–0 semi-final win over Thailand’s Baison Maneekon secured the quota, and China’s Li Qian then beat her 5–0 for the gold. She had carried India’s flag at the opening ceremony with the hockey captain, Harmanpreet Singh. In Paris the following August she beat Norway’s Sunniva Hofstad 5–0 and met Li again in the quarter-finals, losing 4–1.
| Year | Event | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Asian Championships, Ho Chi Minh City69kg | Bronze |
| 2018 | Commonwealth Games, Gold CoastLost quarter-final to Sandy Ryan (ENG) | QF |
| 2018 | World Championships, New DelhiLost semi-final to Chen Nien-chin (TPE), the champion | Bronze |
| 2019 | World Championships, Ulan-UdeLost semi-final 2–3 to Yang Liu (CHN) | Bronze |
| 2021 | Asian Championships, Dubai69kg | Bronze |
| 2021 | Olympic Games, TokyoBeat Apetz 3–2, Chen 4–1; lost 0–5 to Sürmeneli (TUR) | Bronze |
| 2022 | Commonwealth Games, BirminghamSecond Games without a medal | QF |
| 2022 | Asian Championships, Amman75kg · beat Sokhiba Ruzmetova (UZB) 5–0 | Gold |
| 2023 | World Championships, New DelhiBeat Caitlin Parker (AUS) 5–2 after a bout review | Gold |
| 2023 | Asian Games, HangzhouParis quota in the semi-final; lost final 0–5 to Li Qian (CHN) | Silver |
| 2024 | Olympic Games, ParisBeat Sunniva Hofstad (NOR) 5–0; lost quarter-final 1–4 to Li Qian | QF |
| 2025 | World Championships, LiverpoolOut in the second round, per PTI | R2 |
| 2026 | Boxam Elite, SpainBeat Mary-Kate Smith (ENG) 4–1 in the final | Gold |
| 2026 | Asian Championships, UlaanbaatarLost semi-final 0–5 to Aziza Zokirova (UZB) | Bronze |
| 2026 | Commonwealth Games, GlasgowBeat Tarona Taafaki (TUV) 5–0; lost final 1–4 to Emma-Sue Greentree (AUS) | Silver |
| 2026 | Asian Games, Aichi–NagoyaBeat Seong 5–0, Bogdanova 3–2, Bao Ziyi 5–0 | Gold |
The year she nearly stopped
Paris was meant to be the end. According to PTI, Borgohain had planned to retire after the 2024 Games; missing a medal changed her mind, but she then spent about a year away from the international circuit. When she came back she lost in the second round of the 2025 World Championships in Liverpool, and she skipped the World Boxing Cup final. “It was a tough year for me. (Earlier) I wanted to quit boxing. But I continued,” she said on Friday.
The way back ran through smaller rings. She won the national title in Noida in January and, weeks later, the Boxam Elite tournament in Spain, beating England’s Mary-Kate Smith 4–1 in the final. In April she took bronze at the Asian Championships after the semi-final loss to Zokirova — her first major international medal since 2024. “It may be a bronze but it means more than a gold to me,” she told The Assam Tribune. “There were times when I almost thought of giving up boxing.”
By not reaching the Asian final she also missed a direct berth for the Games. So in May she went to the national trials in Patiala and beat Sanamacha Chanu 5–0 in the 75kg final for her places in Glasgow and Nagoya. The Indian selection model leaves even an Olympic medallist and former world champion one bad bout away from a trial.
Glasgow went almost to plan. A bye in the 75kg draw put her straight into the semi-finals, so she was assured of a medal — India’s first of the Games — before she had boxed. On 31 July she beat Tuvalu’s Tarona Taafaki 5–0. The next day Australia’s Emma-Sue Greentree beat her 4–1. It was her third Commonwealth Games and her first medal at one. “Now, looking ahead to the Asian Games, I won silver last time, so I want to change the colour of that medal,” she told ANI on 4 August. On Friday, 62 days after the Glasgow final, she did. “I was not happy about winning the silver medal at the Commonwealth Games,” she told PTI.
Twelve years after Mary Kom
Women’s boxing joined the Asian Games at Guangzhou in 2010. In four Games from Guangzhou to Hangzhou, India won one women’s gold: Mary Kom’s at 51kg in Incheon in 2014, where she beat Kazakhstan’s Zhaina Shekerbekova in the final. India’s men won two golds in Guangzhou, through Vikas Krishan and Vijender Singh — whose came at 75kg, Borgohain’s weight — and one more in Jakarta through Amit Panghal. Hangzhou produced none. Friday produced three in a single day, two of them for women.
| Games | Boxer | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Vikas KrishanGuangzhou | M 60kg |
| 2010 | Vijender SinghGuangzhou | M 75kg |
| 2014 | Mary KomIncheon · beat Zhaina Shekerbekova (KAZ) in the final | W 51kg |
| 2018 | Amit PanghalJakarta | M 49kg |
| Hangzhou 2023: no gold · Borgohain’s silver was India’s best | ||
| 2026 | Lovlina BorgohainAichi–Nagoya · beat Bao Ziyi (CHN) 5–0 · first of the day | W 75kg |
| 2026 | Parveen HoodaAichi–Nagoya · beat Chen Nien-chin (TPE) 3–2 | W 65kg |
| 2026 | Ankush PanghalAichi–Nagoya · beat Kim Min-seong (KOR) | M 80kg |
The medal also puts her alongside the two Indians who came before her on the Olympic podium. Vijender Singh and Mary Kom are the only other Indian boxers with medals at the Olympics, the World Championships, the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games; Borgohain completed that set in Glasgow and has now added the Asian Games gold.
Her career is a fair map of how Indian boxing finds and keeps its talent. A SAI talent trial in a district school, a SAI centre in Guwahati, national camps with foreign coaches — Raffaele Bergamasco ran the women’s team in Tokyo — and a state job: she is a deputy superintendent in Assam Police, appointed in 2022. She received the Arjuna Award in 2020 and the Khel Ratna in 2021, and in 2022 she was elected chair of the athletes’ committee of the International Boxing Association (IBA). None of it exempted her from the trial in Patiala.
Asked on Friday who she would call first, Borgohain told PTI it would be her mother, who does not watch her bouts because she gets too worried. ISJ’s carousel ends somewhere else: Los Angeles 2028, which would be her third Olympics, at 30. No Indian boxer has won Olympic gold. India’s three Olympic boxing medals — Vijender’s, Mary Kom’s and hers — are all bronze. In Los Angeles, the medal left to change is the one that made her name.
Borgohain returned to New Delhi from Japan on the Sunday after the final and was welcomed by friends and neighbours in Rajouri Garden, where she lives. The medal was special, she told ANI, first because it came on her birthday, and because “since I had won silver last time, I wanted to upgrade the colour of the medal this time.”
Sourcing. PTI (via ThePrint, DT Next, The Daily Pioneer, Deccan Chronicle, Gulf News, The Hindu, Hindustan Times); ANI (via Asianet Newsable, The Tribune, Open, Lokmat Times); IANS (via The Sentinel, NationPress: the final’s judges’ totals); The Times of India (the final’s rounds); Olympics.com (boxing round-up, 2 October); UNI; Outlook; Khel Now; Republic; OdishaBytes; The Assam Tribune; Lokmat Times (Patiala trial; Paris 2024 quarter-final); Asian Boxing Confederation and World Boxing (Ulaanbaatar finals); Wikipedia (2024 IBA Youth World Championships; Natalya Bogdanova; 2025 World Boxing Championships women’s 70kg; Borgohain’s 2017–2021 results); Bao Quoc Te (Bao Ziyi’s age, Luu Diem Quynh’s semi-final); Olympics.com (Covid-19, 2020; Paris 2024 opener); ESPN (2023 world final); The Bridge (Amman 2022, Hangzhou 2023); India Today NE (Hangzhou final); The Week, Outlook and Revsportz (Glasgow); The Better India (village, family, The Indian Express quote); Sportskeeda (the Muhammad Ali quote); Man’s World (the road); the OCA Hangzhou athlete profile (coach, flag-bearer, Assam Police, nickname); The Wire (Assam’s first Olympic medal); ISJ’s Glasgow 2026 boxing reporting.
Corrections to the carousel. Slide 2: “3–2. 4–1. 5–0.” and its round strip give the final’s third round 5–0, as ANI did — the judges’ totals IANS reported (29–28 from four judges, 30–27 from one) allow only 4–1, as Outlook and The Times of India report; “70 medals in all, after hers” could not be confirmed (All India Radio gave 72, including 12 gold, that afternoon). Slide 4: the third round of the semi-final is given to Borgohain 3–2 — PTI gives it to Bogdanova 3–2 (Borgohain still won 3–2 on cards). Its quote, both sentences, and the eight-boxer draw are confirmed (PTI; Games draw). Slide 9: the quote reads “…for having no sons but three daughters” — the published rendering of her Indian Express remark is “…pity my parents, with no sons and three daughters”, per The Better India. Slide 10: “Class 5”, “I follow his footwork and long punch”, the Scroll hostel quote, Shiv Singh as women’s chief coach and Sandhya Gurung “from 2016” could not be verified and are not used. Slide 11: “on her debut” could not be verified. Slide 13: “the first woman from Assam to qualify for an Olympics” and her mother’s kidney transplant could not be verified and are not used; the quote reads “I have lost to her four times. So, I wanted to prove myself.” — ANI’s published wording is “I had lost four times against my opponent earlier, I wanted to prove myself…”; the road repair was announced on 30 July 2021 and under way within a week, per Man’s World, rather than begun that day. Slide 15: the February 2025 National Games gold could not be verified; Liverpool 2025 “lost first bout” — PTI says she lost in the second round; the August 2025 complaint against a BFI official, the IOA panel and the quote attached to it could not be verified for this article and are not used. Slide 17: “Two golds since women’s boxing joined the Games in 2010” — by the carousel’s date there were three, Parveen Hooda having won the 65kg final later on 2 October; its ledger of India’s golds since 2010 also omits Parveen Hooda (65kg) and Ankush Panghal (80kg), both 2 October, per Republic and OdishaBytes. Slide 18: the Adidas “You Got This” campaign (September 2026), the Reliance Foundation film and the 2022 “Impossible Is Nothing” line-up could not be verified and are not used. Slide 19: the nickname “Biku” is verified on her OCA Asian Games profile, not her Olympic one; the January 2022 appointment month and the June 2025 North Guwahati academy could not be verified. Slide 20: “She would be the first Indian ever” — the first Indian boxer; India has Olympic golds in other sports.
Flag. Round-by-round accounts of the final differ: ANI, Open and Asianet give 3–2, 4–1, 5–0; Outlook and The Times of India give 3–2, 4–1, 4–1, the only split that fits the judges’ totals IANS reported (29–28 four times, 30–27 once), and the copy and graphic follow them; Khel Now’s round account is internally inconsistent. Bogdanova’s world title is at 70kg (World Boxing results; PTI, National Herald, Khel Now); MyKhel calls her the 75kg champion. The Tribune reported the Hangzhou final as a 2–3 split; The Bridge and India Today NE give 0–5. Her father is described as a small businessman by The Better India and Wikipedia; MyKhel quotes her telling the Times of India that he worked in a tea garden. UNI and Outlook gave her age as 28 on the day of the final; she turned 29 that day. India’s tally on 2 October moved fast and is reported inconsistently: ANI gave 70 medals after her final, All India Radio 72 (12 gold) that afternoon, Republic 74 (14 gold) and OdishaBytes and Mint 75 (15 gold) by the evening; the copy gives only her gold’s number, the 12th, which All India Radio and Mathrubhumi confirm. The number of Indian boxing entries (11) and the half-hour gap before Ankush Panghal’s final could not be confirmed and were cut. The Glasgow bye is from ISJ’s Glasgow reporting; “five boxers in the draw” and “before the opening ceremony” could not be confirmed and were cut. Her school is Barpathar Girls High School per Wikipedia and the carousel, and “Sarupathar Girls School” per Sportskeeda. The Wikipedia article on Borgohain contains contradictory Tokyo and Paris entries and was used only where another source agreed.
