Nis, Serbia, Monday:
The opening action at the 14th IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships in the Southern Serbia city of Nis has been challenging for African boxers as two-time World medallist Alua Balkibekova from Kazakhstan started her campaign for a gold medal positively.
Balkibekova dug deep to conjure up victory over Kenya’s Veronica Mbithe in the opening session of the action on Sunday night with two Kenyan boxers earning walkovers on Monday, South African and Tanzanian boxers marked as no-shows and Ethiopia’s Wada Werknesh Wakjira falling at the first hurdle via RSC against Turkey’s Taskin Aysen.
Two-time Asian champion Balkibekova was made to sweat for the win in the 50kg (flyweight) category, as the Kazakh faced the spritely Kenyan who refused to slow down.
Only close to the end, Balkibekova caused a count against her opponent, further cementing her lead.
The 29-year-old has won silver and bronze at the past two World Championships and will now be looking to complete the set with gold in 2025.
“The fight motivated me… I’m very happy because I have now seen that these fighters are beatable after all,” an encouraged Mbithe said.
Two of Mbithe’s Kenyan compatriots, flyweight Akinyi and featherweight Pauline Chege, are through to the Round of 16 after their would-be opponents Mathiba Thandolwethu (South Africa) and Gojkovic Bojana (Montenegro) were no-shows.
Aysen Taskin from Türkiye earned a second-round stoppage victory over Ethiopia’s Wakjira Wada.
The Ethiopian was on the wrong end of two standing counts at the end of round one, and a third would come in the second round, which was enough for the referee to intervene.
The first match of these championships here was contested between Fatima Herrera of Mexico and the home favorite, Sanja Mitic, also in the 50kg division.
During the second round, Herrera looked comfortable with the cleaner shots. The third round saw the Mexican as the clear winner and with that, a unanimous decision in favor of the visitor.
Elsewhere in the weight category, a ferocious pace was set from the start between An Kum Byol of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Alondra Brito from Venezuela.
The North Korean was more aggressive of the pair and looked very dangerous, particularly in the opening round.
As the match continued, Brito’s quality improved close, but An was able to garner favor with the majority of judges, winning on a 3-2 split decision, confirmed by a bout review – 2-0.
Colombian Yerlin Isaura Quinones scored a second-round win by referee’s stoppage against Teona Pirosmanashvili of Georgia, who was counted by the referee on three occasions in round two.
Azerbaijan’s Marjona Savriyeva progressed too after a second-round knee injury to Romanian Mihaela Badescu forced the contest to end early.
Two matches took place in the 60kg weight category, with DPR Korea defeating Venezuela for the second time in the session. This time, Won Un Gyong was the unanimous victor over Krisandy Rios.
The victory, much like her compatriot earlier in the evening, came out of the gates fast, but the Venezuelan looked better in the second round.
The contest looked close until the final minute when Won started to dominate, giving her the decisive nod in round three.
Also through in the tournament is Elida Kocharyan from Armenia, beating Claudia Nechita from Romania.
After a close first round, Kocharyan landed a lovely right hand to drop the Romanian and face a count of eight.
While Nechita still looked lively, the Armenian was now firmly in control and going on to win by a unanimous decision.
The last two bouts of the night featured boxers in the +81kg category, with the first being a rematch of the Asian Championships final in December 2024.
Once again, it was Yeldana Talipova of Kazakhstan who emerged victorious by unanimous decision over Oltinoy Sotimboeva from Uzbekistan.
The final fight of the night saw Elif Guneri start her quest for a sixth world medal with a victory over Judy Bobbett of Ireland.
The Turkish boxer, who has one silver and four bronze medals to her name, was the comfortable winner.
Guneri, who has boxed at 81kg for most of her career, recently moved into the +81kg weight division.
Action continues daily with two sessions at the Čair Sports Complex. (IBA, with additional reporting by Pura Vida Desk)
IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships 2025 is live-streamed fully on the IBA YouTube channel. All draws, schedules and results are available on IBA website.
This update is generally attributed to Pura Vida’s Content team. Feel free to shared any feedback or or relevant info incase of inaccuracies.
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