Rio Olympics bronze-medallist, Qian, completely outpunched Rani in a thoroughly dominant quarterfinal showing on Saturday.
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On a disappointing day for Indian boxing, Pooja Rani (75kg) went down 0-5 in her quarterfinal bout against China’s Li Qian on Saturday in the Tokyo Olympics. She joined world number one Amit Panghal (52kg) in exiting the Olympic Games after a less than impressive performance on Saturday. Qian, who is a former world champion and a Rio Olympics bronze-medallist, completely outpunched Rani in a thoroughly dominant quarterfinal showing. This was after boxer Amit Panghal, a strong medal contender for India, crashed out of the Olympics, losing to Yuberjen Herney Martinez Rivas of Colombia in a round-of-16 bout on Saturday.
Rani displayed some spark in the opening round but looked largely clueless in the ring throughout her bout. It was all thanks to her opponent Qian, who was efficient in her counter-hitting. Whenever the Indian tried to launch an offensive, the Chinese boxer hit straight and clean to never allow Rani a respite. Rani’s waiting game did not work either as the Chinese boxer penetrated through her defence comfortably, who is now guaranteed a second Olympic medal.
?@PoojaRani gives her best but couldn’t get over the line as she goes down against Rio #Olympics ?medalist ??’s Qian Li in Quarterfinals of 75 kg at @Tokyo2020#RingKeBaazigar#boxing#Tokyo2020#Cheer4India#TeamIndia pic.twitter.com/hAlLZYmOVz
— Boxing Federation (@BFI_official) July 31, 2021
Earlier Panghal, who was also making his debut in the Games, failed to take advantage of his good start. Panghal, who was one of the country’s strongest medal contenders, was put under pressure by the spirited Colombian in the opening round, but the Indian survived it to claim the first three minutes 4-1.
Despite Panghal bagging the first round, Martinez’s pace and energy level must have been a cause for concern for the Indian camp. The Colombian boxer upped the tempo in the second round and was making life extremely difficult for the Indian boxer. From there on, Martinez made sure that there was no let-up in the intensity as he won the bout in the end.
“They have sparred with each other. In some of them Amit was better than today but in others, it was similar to what happened today. It wasn’t a total surprise because we had seen that this guy is very dangerous,” Indian Boxing’s High Performance Director Santiago Nieva was quoted as saying by PTI after the bout. “We knew what to expect but our hope was that Amit would stand up better in the last two rounds.”
“He didn’t have the strength to move, so he stayed inside. Then (eventually) he didn’t have the strength to respond also and he became passive. There the Colombian scored a lot of points,” Nieva said. “Against no other opponent, I have seen Amit so tired. It’s not just him, in the Italy camp we also had Deepak, who is also a world-class boxer, and he also could not stop him. We were facing a very high-calibre boxer,” he added referring to Asian silver-medallist Deepak Kumar.
