India’s Parveen Hooda and Ankush Panghal advanced to the boxing finals at the 2026 Asian Games after impressive semifinal victories, while Narender Berwal secured a bronze medal after losing his men’s +90kg semifinal on Tuesday.
Parveen defeated China’s Li Shu 5-0 in the women’s 65kg semifinal, while Ankush staged a remarkable comeback to beat Uzbekistan’s Fazliddin Erkinboev 4-1 in the men’s 80kg semifinal.
Erkinboev is the reigning world champion in the 75kg category, making Ankush’s victory on his Asian Games debut particularly notable.
Ankush was trailing 1-4 after the first round but completely changed the course of the bout in the next two rounds. He narrowly won the second round 3-2 before dominating the third 5-0 to secure a 4-1 split-decision victory. Four judges scored the contest 29-28 in Ankush’s favour, while one judge awarded the bout to Erkinboev based on the round-by-round scoring.
With the win, Ankush became the first Indian male boxer to reach an Asian Games final since Amit Panghal won gold in the 49kg category at the 2018 Jakarta Games.
Earlier, Parveen delivered a commanding performance against Li Shu. She narrowly took the opening round 3-2 before winning both the second and third rounds 5-0 to complete a 5-0 unanimous victory.
Parveen will take on Chinese Taipei’s Chen Nien-chin in the gold medal bout. By reaching the final, she has bettered her result from the previous Asian Games in Hangzhou, where she had won bronze. That medal was later withdrawn after the International Testing Agency suspended her for 22 months over a whereabouts failure.
Parveen is now only the third Indian woman boxer to make an Asian Games final. She joins MC Mary Kom, who won gold in 2014, and Lovlina Borgohain, who claimed silver at the previous edition.
Narender, meanwhile, went down 0-5 to Kazakhstan’s reigning super heavyweight world champion Aibek Oralbay in the men’s +90kg semifinal.
Oralbay dictated the contest with his powerful punches and won all three rounds. Narender put up a determined fight but was unable to close the gap as the Kazakh boxer secured a unanimous 5-0 victory.
Narender therefore added another Asian Games bronze medal to his record, having also won bronze at the 2022 Hangzhou Games.
India have now secured six boxing medals at the ongoing Asian Games, surpassing the five medals won at the previous edition.
