Youth World Boxing Championships: Sakshi Choudhary clinches gold with dominant win over Croatia's Nikolina Cacic

Budapest: Former junior world champion boxer Sakshi Choudhary (57kg) added the youth crown to her cabinet, claiming the gold with a dominating victory over Nikolina Cacic of Croatia at Budapest on Friday. Sakshi fetched a unanimous verdict over the Croat to clinch the gold medal. [caption id=“attachment_5095651” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sakshi Choudhary won by a unanimous verdict. Image credit: Official Facebook page of Boxing Federation of India[/caption] However, Asian champions Manisha (64kg) and silver-medallist Anamika (51kg) settled for silver medals. Anamika lost a close one to American Destiny Garcia but Manisha was out-punched by England’s Gemma Richardson. Anamika went down 2-3 after a gruelling bout in which she matched the American punch for punch but could not find favour with the judges. Asian champion Manisha squared off against Richardson in the last Indian bout of the day. Although she had her moments with some power-packed right straights, the effort was just not enough to stop the clinical English girl. Earlier on Thursday, defending champion Nitu Ghanghas (48kg) claimed her second successive gold at the world youth boxing championships with a gritty performance in the final. The Haryana-boxer, who is also an Asian champion, defeated Thailand’s Nillada Meekoon in a split decision on the first day of summit clashes, a day in which she was the only Indian in action. She had won her previous world championship gold last year when the event was held in Guwahati. It was a gruelling slugfest that Nitu had to pull through against Meekoon, who made the bout slightly messy with her defensive tactics that involved considerable holding. The Indian, however, kept her composure and came up with straight and clean blows to fetch a favourable verdict from the judges. Earlier, Jony (60kg) and Astha Pahwa (75kg) joined Asian medallists Bhavesh Kattimani (52kg) and Ankit Khatana (60kg) and Neha Yadav (+81kg) and Sakshi Gaidhani (81kg) in settling for bronze medals after semi-final losses. The Indian women’s team had claimed seven medals in the previous edition of the event and has surpassed that number this time.