Who will Nikhat and Lovlina fight in the Boxing World Championship finals?

India’s Nikhat Zareen and Lovlina Borgohain will take on Vietnam’s Nguyen Thị Tam and Caitlin Parker of Australia, respectively, in the IBA Women’s Boxing World Championship 2023 finals on Sunday.

Vietnam’s Nguyen Thị Tam and Caitlin Parker of Australia. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

India’s Nikhat Zareen and Lovlina Borgohain will take on Vietnam’s Nguyen Thị Tam and Caitlin Parker of Australia, respectively, in the IBA Women’s Boxing World Championship 2023 finals on Sunday.

50kg: Nikhat Zareen vs Nguyen Thị Tam (Vietnam)

At 28 years old, Nguyen Thi Tam is a seasoned veteran of the ring, with two gold medals at the Asian Championships, including the most recent edition in Jordan last year. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Nikhat Zareen has had to fight five tough opponents to get to the final of the 50kg category of the IBA Boxing World Championships. She has beaten Thailand’s Chuthamat Raksat and Colombia’s Ingrid Valencia, who had four World Championships and one Olympic medal between them. Nikhat will face another tough task against Vietnam’s Nguyen Thi Tam. At 28 years old, Tam is a seasoned veteran with two gold medals at the Asian Championships, including the most recent edition in Jordan last year.

As a southpaw boxer, Tam will create difficult angles for Nikhat, and she’s known to trouble the best boxers in the world. At the Asian Championships last year, she beat Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist Tsukimi Namiki of Japan. A year earlier, she had lost to Stoyka Krasteva of Bulgaria in the first round of the Tokyo Olympics. Krasteva edged a very close 3-2 decision against the Vietnamese boxer, which was her closest bout of the entire tournament.

At the 2023 World Championships, Tam managed to pick up a few scalps on the way to the final. She’s beaten two-time world champion Nazym Kyzaibay of Kazakhstan in the first round, 2022 Worlds bronze medallist Laura Fuertes of Spain in the quarterfinals, and in the semifinals overcame a spirited Wassila Lkhadiri of France, who had earlier beaten Japan’s Namiki and 2018 Asian Games champion Wang Yuan of China.

75kg: Lovlina Borgohain vs Caitlin Parker (Australia)

Two-time Commonwealth Games medallist Caitlin Parker stands between Lovlina Borgohain and her first gold medal at the World Championships | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Two-time Commonwealth Games medallist Caitlin Parker stands between Lovlina Borgohain and her first gold medal at the World Championships. At 5 foot 9, Parker is just slightly shorter than Borgohain, which will be of some relief to the Indian, who had to overcome a reach disadvantage in her previous bout against China’s Li Quan.

Borgohain goes into the contest with the better record on paper – she is already a two-time world medallist and an Olympic bronze medallist – in contrast to Parker, who has never medalled at either the worlds or the Olympics. However, where, Parker, 25, has the advantage that she has competed in middleweight for a lot longer -- she won a bronze at the 2014 Youth Olympics in this weight class -- than Borgohain. The Indian only switched from her preferred welterweight division (69kg) to the middleweight (75kg) category last year after the former weight class was dropped from the Olympic program.

Both Lovlina and Parker are orthodox boxers which will negate for both opponents any unusual angles. Parker is also unlikely to be overawed by the Indian’s superior record. She remains the last opponent to have beaten Tokyo Olympic champion Lauren Price while at the World Championships in New Delhi. Parker has also defeated World Champions Athena Bylon and Valentina Khalzova en route to the final.