Mary Kom settles for bronze in World Championships

Mary Kom in action(PTI)

Ulan-Ude (Russia), October 12 (IANS) Six-time champion MC Mary Kom will have to settle for a bronze medal in the ongoing Women's World Boxing Championships after losing her semi-final bout of the 51-kg flyweight category to second-seed Busenaz Cakiroglu of Turkey in a split 1:4 verdict on Saturday.

In a fiercely contested bout, third-seed Mary Kom delivered timely punches and looked on course of winning her first gold in the 51-kg division.

However, Busenaz, who is a European Championships and European Games gold medallist, emerged better of the two as she used her agility and reach much better than the 36-year-old Indian and won the bout.

The judges' points at the end stood at 29-28, 27-30, 28-29, 28-29, 27-30 in Busenaz's favour and Mary Kom bowed out of the competition.

This is the eight Worlds medal for the Indian pugilist, as she adds a bronze medal to her previous tally of six gold and a silver.

The London Olympic bronze medallist, who has six gold medals from this tournament, created history on Thursday when she broke a tie with Cuban men's legend Felix Savon to become the only boxer across male and female categories to amass eight World Championships medals.