Mary Kom storms into final; Sarita Devi, Devendro, bag bronze medal at Incheon
Source: The Sangai Express

Incheon, September 30 2014 : MC Mary Kom secured a berth in the gold medal bout of the women's flyweight (48-51kg) after a convincing win in the semi-final of the 17th Asian Games on Tuesday.

The 31-year-old Indian beat Vietnam's Le Thi Bang by 3�0 decision to enter the final.

Mary Kom peppered her opponent with multiple combination punches and didn't give her anytime to gain a foothold.

Le went for broke in the fourth and final round and managed to connect a few punches but with the Indian, having already won the previous three rounds there was very little the Vietnamese could do.

Judge A from Bulgaria ruled the bout 40-36 in favour of the Indian.

Judge B of Morocco gave the same scores but Judge C of Italy awarded the fourth round 10-9 in favour of Le, however, his final scored of 39-37 went to Mary Kom.

Laishram Sarita Devi (in blue) in action against Korea's Jina Park (left), MC Mary Kom (in blue) lands a punch against Vietnam's Le Thi Bang (right)

Mary was a clear winner even though she was the shorter of the two southpaws, she easily came inside the Vietnamese boxer's territory to score with jabs and rights to the face.

She will now fight against Zhaina Shekerbekova of Kazakhstan.

"I will keep my focus because a gold has to be won for the country," she said.

Controversy hit the Asian Games boxing competition after India's L Sarita Devi (60kg) had to settle for a bronze medal despite dominating her semifinal bout even as M C Mary Kom (51kg) continued her winning run to enter the summit clash of the mega-event here on Tuesday.

India endured more of bizarre judging in the men's competition when Devendro lost his quarterfinal bout to home favourite Shin Jonghun despite out-punching him in all the three rounds.

The Indian woman boxer in fray, Pooja Rani (75kg), also had to settle for a bronze after losing a closely-contested semifinal bout to China's Li Qian.

But what triggered massive outrage was Sarita's loss which left the Manipuri in tears.

Up against home favourite Jina Park, Sarita, the Commonwealth Games silver-medallist, went down 0-3 despite clearly being the better boxer.

Sarita simply pummelled her rival with her flurry of quicksilver blows � at times raining four to her rival's one.

But shockingly, Park was not given a single standing count by the Algerian referee Hammadi Yakoub Kheira despite looking rocked back by Sarita's blows to her chin.

In the end, all three ringside judges ruled in favour of the Korean by identical 39-37 margins.

The ringside judges were Braham Mohamad of Tunisia, Albino Foti of Italy and Mariusz Josef Gorny of Poland.

Immediately after the bout, a tearful Sarita broke down while talking to journalists.

"All my hard work has come to nought.

It has happened to me but kindly see that this kind of injustice is not meted out to anyone else in the competition.

I request you," she said tearfully with folded hands.

"If they wanted to award the bout to her, then why allow us to fight in the first place," she added.

Her husband and former footballer Thoiba Singh was even more furious and shouted obscenities at the ring officials, saying it was a clear case of cheating.

"You are killing boxing," he shouted repeatedly and even went to the extent of trying to enter the ring again to cry out at the injustice but was prevented by the security officials.

India's long-time Cuban coach B I Fernandez also called it a clear case of cheating, but said no purpose would be served by lodging a protest that will cost the Indian contingent USD 500 and will be forfeited if the appeal was lost.

"There's no point.

It was pre-decided, the 3-0 verdict is a clear cut indication.

The Korean deserved to have been given many standing counts, going by what happened in the ring, and the bout should have been stopped," he said.

"Sarita was a clear-cut winner but money has talked here and the judges deserve to be thrown out.

It happened in Seoul during the 1988 Olympic Games, it's happening now again.

Nothing seems to have changed.

The new rules have made no difference," he fumed.

Later, Pooja put a spirited performance against Qian but eventually lost the bout 2-1 to finish a bronze-medallist.

Satish Kumar on Tuesday reached the semi-finals, assuring India a medal in the super-heavy weight category (+91kg), after winning his quarter-final bout in the 17th Asian Games at the Seonhak Gymnasium in Incheon.

He beat Jordan's Hussein Eishaish 2-1 by a split decision.

He got a cumulative 28-29 verdict from Uzbekistan's Judge A and favourable verdicts from Cuba's Judge B and Philippines' Judge C, both giving 29-28 judgment to the Indian after completion of three rounds.

He will take on Kazakhstan's Ivan Dycho in the last four matches on Thursday.

Earlier, Shiva Thapa lost his quarter-final bout of the bantamweight (56kg) category, going down to Philippines' Mazrio Fernandez 0-3 by a unanimous judges' decision.

He got a 27-30 verdict from Tunisian Judge A, 28-29 from Belarusian Judge B and 27-30 from South Korea's Judge C .