NAGOYA: Life has come full circle for Parveen Hooda.
Making a return to the Asian Games, where she had been stripped of a bronze in the previous edition, the India boxer redeemed herself with an emphatic victory over Navbakhor Khamidova of Uzbekistan in the quarterfinals at the Nishio Gymnasium in Nisho City (Japan) on Sunday. In the process, she is now set to walk away with a bronze medal at the very least.
It was at this very Games that she had once won a significant bronze that had catapulted her towards her dreams -- the Olympics. But barely a few months later, that medal was taken away from her due to whereabouts failures between April 2022 to March 2023. Naturally, the world had come crashing down for her and her boxing career was in tatters.
Having served her suspension, she made a stellar comeback by capturing the gold medal in the World Boxing Cup Finals in late 2025. However, just when it seemed like she had regained some form of balance in her boxing career, she had faced yet another setback, this time inside the ring.
While Indian boxers generated widespread attention for topping the charts with seven gold and three silver medals during the recent Commonwealth Games, Parveen was one of the few boxers from the country who had remained in the shadows then after suffering a first-round split-decision defeat against Sacha Hickey.
On the day, Parveen was as calm as they come as Navbakor just couldn't find the openings to disrupt the Indian boxer's rhythm. As the fight wore on, Parveen continued to maintain the gap and eventually got the votes from all the five judges by the ringside. 5-0 was the final scoreline.
For India, it was 2-0 on the day as Ankush Panghal, a boxer who has made rapid strides in recent months, secured the country's first medal of the ongoing edition with a victory over Nekruz Salimov of Tajikistan.
However, Sachin could not keep up the winning streak as he lost his men's 60kg bout to just miss out on the gong.
