Wednesday, August 08, 2012 -
Tajik female boxer Mavzuna Chorieva may have lost to her Irish contender on Wednesday but still came away with a bronze medal to win her country’s first medal in boxing, and only medal thus far in the London Olympics.
Chorieva, 19, faced Irish Katie Taylor for the quarterfinal bout in London on Wednesday, and was soundly beaten in a 17-9 final score.
“Next time I will take her, but she will win the gold medal at these Olympics,” Chorieva told the Reuters news agency.
“I will be back for the 2016 Olympics and try for gold.”
Taylor, 26, said Chorieva was a challenge to defeat.
“She [Chorieva] is a good counter puncher and you just have to stay calm and composed and rack up the points,” Taylor said.
“She is very dirty in close as well, we all knew she was going to be physical in close so I just had to box...She was trying to [wind me up] from the very start but I just kept to my boxing really.”
Chorieva will be the recipient of a two-room apartment in the Tajik capital Dushanbe, provided by opposition political group Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan (IRPT).
Kazakhstan also came away with a bronze in boxing in the 75-kg category on Wednesday. Maria Volnova was destroyed by young American boxer Claressa Shields, who at 17 is the youngest boxer in the games.
This is the first year that women’s boxing is included in the Olympics.
Kyrgyz female wrestler Aisuluu Tynybekova, 19, suffered an unexpected defeat on Wednesday against Sweden’s Henna Johansson in the 63-kg freestyle bracket. Tynybekova, the first Kyrgyz female wrestler to qualify for the games, will return home to face assault charges following a fight in Bishkek. The court date had been pushed back to allow the athlete to compete in London.
Tynybekova’s coach blamed the stress of the upcoming trial for her disappointing Olympics result.
In Olympic medal standings, Kazakhstan slid to tenth place with 7 medals, while Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are tied at 66th with one bronze medal each.