Olympic athlete from India, Lovlina Borgohain: Lovlina Borgohain, an Indian boxer, is competing in the women’s 75kg division of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Lovlina Borgohain was born on October 2, 1997, in the little town of Baromukhia in the Golaghat district of Assam. She advanced quickly through the ranks of world boxing. Her journey from lowly beginnings to international podiums started in Muay Thai, where she competed with her two older sisters, who were all national-level fighters.
Coach Padum Boro noticed Lovlina’s talent during a 2012 Sports Authority of India (SAI) trial, and he helped her achieve international success by putting her through a gruelling training regimen. Lovlina developed her talents at the SAI centre in Guwahati, where she also won the junior national championship. After that, she excelled internationally, taking home a silver medal from the Nation’s Women’s Junior Cup in Serbia in 2013.
Lovlina had early hurdles, too, such having to move up to heavier weight divisions because of her height, but she always performed exceptionally well. Her breakthrough performance was a bronze at the 2017 Asian Championships. She then went on to win gold at the 2018 India Open, which secured her a ticket at the Commonwealth Games. However, she was defeated in the quarterfinals by England’s Sandy Ryan, the gold medallist.
Despite being tested by a defeat there, Lovlina overcame hardship and injuries to win bronze at the 2018 World Championships. With national and international gold medals under her belt, she cemented her status as the leading female welterweight fighter in India in 2019.
Lovlina created history by winning an Olympic bronze medal at the Asia and Oceania Boxing Olympic qualifiers, which allowed her to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics 2020. Her career turned around when she defeated former world champion Chen Nien-chin, cemented her place among India’s boxing greats alongside legends like Mary Kom and Vijender Singh.
She qualified for the Olympics in Paris by winning gold at the 2022 Asian Championships and silver at the 2023 Asian Games. The following year, in New Delhi, she won the global championship.
