France’s Estelle Mossely, who won gold at the Rio Olympics at 60kg, and Filipino Nesthy Petecio, who won a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics at 57kg, are among the top boxers to enter the Women’s World Championship, which will be held in Delhi from March 15-26.
The 30-year-old Estelle, a former world champion, has also won medals in other elite events such as the European Games and European championships.
Nesthy, a 2019 World champion, was the first ever boxer from her country to win an Olympics medal.
Tokyo Olympic silver medalist Beatriz Lasmin Ferreira (60kg) of Brazil and Qian Li (75kg) of China and bronze medalist Tsukimi Namiki of Japan and Irma Testa of Italy (57kg) and 2016 Olympic bronze medalist Ingrit Valencia of Colombia (51kg) are among the boxers who have registered for the event will be held in Delhi for the third time.
Home favourite Lovlina Borgohain, who bagged bronze in 69kg in two World championships and the Tokyo Olympics, will try to assert her class in a new weight after securing the Asian title in 75kg.
Nikhat Zareen, the 52kg World champion who bagged the Commonwealth Games gold in 50kg, will be another star attraction from the host.
Even as several countries pulled out of the event due to the International Boxing Association’s decision to allow boxers from Russia and Belarus to compete under their own flags, the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) claimed that the World championships received a record number of entries.
“We have already received registrations from 74 countries so far, bigger than that in any previous edition. The last World championships saw the participation of 310 boxers. In this edition, we already have more than 350 registrations, which are open till February 25,” said BFI president Ajay Singh.
