Women’s boxing is growing both in popularity and in participation and, as the 2017 AIBA Youth Women’s World Boxing Championships showed, the future looks bright for female fighters. The competition, held in Guwahati had a number of stars and came to a thrilling conclusion last Sunday as ten finals were held on the same day with girls from five different countries taking home gold medals and showing themselves to be the best in the world for their age.  

A packed field arrived in India for the week long tournament hoping to prove themselves to be the best with 161 different fighters coming from 31 different countries competing not only for glory in the here and now but for the chance to participate in the 2018 Youth olympics. If this tournament was anything to go by then the youth olympics will be a cracker!

Sunday then saw a number of punters pack into the fourth AIBA World Championship hoping to catch a glimpse of the next big thing. The day began with the light flyweight category which featured a Indian fighter going for gold with an excited home crowd backing her all the way. It took her a while to feel her way into the fight but eventually Nitu managed to overcome Kazakhstan’s Zhazira Urakbayeva to win the bout. In the flyweight final there was another win for India as Jyoti Singh overpowered Russia’s Ekaterina Molchanova. 

The hosts just kept on taking home golds as Sakshi Choudhary faced up against impressive English women Ivy-Jane Smith in the bantamweight final. Choudhary probed and pressed Smith who defended excellently but eventually Choudhary managed to take the fight away from her as well as the medal. Incredibly, the fourth final of the day saw another Indian win, the home crowd were richly rewarded for their vocal support as Sashi Chopra attacked and attacked her opponent, Vietnam’s Do Hong Ngoc and took a split decision to make the featherweight title hers. 

The fifth final managed to provide some variety with Italy’s Vittoria De Carlo matching up against South Korea’s Im Ae Ji in the lightweight category. The European champion De Carlo gave it her best shot but Im Ae Ji was just too strong and recorded South Korea’s first medal of the day. The light welterweight final reasserted Indian dominance with a fifth medal for the country coming courtesy of Ankushita Boro as she eased past Russia’s Ekaterina Dynnik.

That was to be the last medal for the hosts as the final four finals all featured Russian’s aiming to dominate in the same way India had earlier in the day. That quest began badly however as their welterweight hope Natalia Sychugova was impressively shut down by America’s Citlalli Ortiz who recorded the USA’s only medal of the day. Anastasia Shamonova though managed to win for the Russian’s as she brushed aside the England's Georgia O’Connor to take the middleweight title. 

The two blue riband events light-heavyweight and heavyweight featured two very exciting bouts with the first being won impressively by Kazakh Araylym Begdilda spelling another defeat for a Russian, in this case for Anastasia Rybak. However Russia did manage to take home the final gold of the day as Kristina Tkacheva turned the tables beating Kazakh Dina Islambekova comfortably to add the Youth world title to her Junior one. 

If this competition was anything to go by then women’s boxing is in rude health, make sure to note down these names and keep an eye out as their careers blossom.