Some birthdays are remembered for the cake. Lovlina Borgohain’s will be remembered for a gold medal.
On Friday, October 2, the day she turned 29, the Indian boxer beat China’s Bao Ziyi 5-0 in the women’s 75 kg final at the Asian Games in Japan. All five judges gave the win to Lovlina, who used sharp counter-punching to handle an aggressive opponent.
A silver turned into gold. At the last Asian Games, Lovlina lost the 75 kg final to another Chinese boxer and went home with silver. This time she finished the job. She is also the first Indian woman boxer to reach back-to-back Asian Games finals.
A long wait ends. Lovlina is only the second Indian woman to win Asian Games boxing gold. The first was Mary Kom, who won the 51 kg title in 2014, which means India waited 12 years for another one.
How she got there. She beat South Korea’s Seong Su-yeon 5-0 in the quarterfinal. The semifinal against Kazakhstan’s Natalya Bogdanova was much tougher, and Lovlina won it 3-2 on a split decision. In the final, she took control early and never really let go.
A career that keeps adding up. Born in Golaghat, Assam, Lovlina is a Tokyo Olympic bronze medallist. She also won gold at the 2022 Asian Championships and silver at the 2026 Commonwealth Games. This was her first Asian Games gold, and it fills a gap in a very strong record.
Her win is also part of a bigger story for Indian boxing in Japan. At the time of her final, India’s boxers had already secured six medals in Aichi-Nagoya, an improvement on the last Asian Games.
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