Kathmandu, January 25
Nepali boxer Sushma Tamang was restricted to silver medal after she faced defeat in the final of the ASBC Asian U-22 Boxing Championship in Bangkok, Thailand today.
Tamang lost to Uzbekistan's Fozilova Farzona in unanimous decision in the women's minimum-weight (45-48kg) category.
The eighth and ninth National Games gold medallist Tamang created history when she became the first Nepali boxer to advance to the final of the Asian championship.
The silver medal Tamang won in the championship is the biggest one bagged by Nepal boxers in the Asian level so far.
She had outplayed Mongolian boxer Byeisyenbyei Janarguli in the semi-final bout on January 22 after she earned the Referee Stop the Contest (RSC) decision over her opponent in the third round. Earlier, she defeated Vietnam's Pham Thi Quynh Anh in unanimous decision in the quarter-final match on January 19.
No Nepali boxer had succeeded in making it to the semi-finals in previous Asian-level tournaments. Tamang had previously advanced to the quarter-finals in the World Youth Women Boxing Championship in Poland in 2021 on her way to finishing sixth.
Three other Nepali boxers, Hema Rai (54-57kg), Bijaya Bata (86kg) and Trisha Jabegu (75- 81kg) won bronze medals in the championship. Rai won her quarter-final bout against Singaporean boxer Chow Zi Min Berniss before losing to Mongolia's Battur Zoljargal in the semi-finals. Bata and Jabegu were directly drawn in the semi-finals and they faced defeats against Indonesian and Kazakhstan boxers respectively.
A version of this article appears in the print on January 26, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
