Astana, May 27 (IANS) India's wait for a gold in the Women's Boxing Championships continued as Sonia Lather settled for the silver after going down to Italian Alessia Mesiano in the 57kg category final here on Friday.
Sonia went down 1-2 after a hard fought bout against the World No.1 Italian which saw the Indian miss the world champion title by a narrow margin.
The 24-year-old from Haryana started on a confident note to rattle Mesiano in the opening round with her precisely-placed combination punches.
But the Italian, a bronze-medallist in the previous edition, kept her composure and counter-attacked well in the next three rounds.
Sonia found it tough to manoeuvre after Mesiano started engaging her from close range, leaving very little room for the former Asian Championships silver medallist, to launch her jabs.
Failing to counter the Italian pugilist, Sonia was struck by some telling straight punches from Mesiano, who stepped up the tempo in the third and fourth rounds.
Earlier, Sonia thumped Kazakhstan's Aizhan Khojabekova 3-0 to register a memorable triumph in the semi-finals on Thursday.
Sonia's weight category is not part of the Olympic programme. Only three weight categories of 51kg, 60kg and 75kg are part of the women's boxing competitions at the Olympics.
However, Sonia's was the only successful story as far as India's participation is concerned as veterans Mary Kom and L. Sarita Devi and Pooja Rani -- all belonging to Olympics categories -- failed to qualify for the Rio Games after losing in their second round bouts.
