Flyweight (48-51 kilograms), Women

The only woman to win an Olympic title in this division, Nicola Adams, had opted to turn professional after Rio. She then won a world title but an eye injury prematurely ended her career in 2019. Adams had been the oldest Olympic boxing champion for a century so the assumption was that Tokyo would herald in a new generation of flyweights. This was not to be the case.

The first surprise was the absence of previous World Champions Liliya Aetbaeva of Russia, who was not even selected as her country’s representative in the European Qualifying tournament and Choi Mi-Pang of North Korea, whose Olympic hopes were ended by her country’s withdrawal from the Games. This left the Turkish World Championship silver medallist Buse Naz Çakıroğlu, Chang Yuan of China, and Chinese Taipei’s reigning bantamweight world champion Huang Hsiao-Wen as the most likely medallists.

Stoyka Krasteva was a 35-year old Bulgarian who had made to the quarter-finals in 2012 but had missed out on the Rio Olympics. In Tokyo she used all the skill and knowledge she had refined over a decade and a half of international competition. She defeated Yuan in the quarter-final, Japanese fighter Tsukimi Namiki in the semis before comfortably out boxing Çakıroğlu for the gold medal. In doing so, Krasteva broke Adams’ record as the oldest female Olympic boxing champion by two years and was her country’s first Olympic gold medallist in the sport since 1996.

Mandy Bujold of Canada was a late addition to the field by order of the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS). She had taken maternity leave during the first part of the qualifying process but when both the Americas and the final global qualifier were cancelled because of COVID-19, she was left with no opportunity to make Tokyo. CAS ruled that the International Olympic Committee’s boxing task force should have included an accommodation for women who were pregnant or postpartum during the qualifying period. Christine Ongare of Kenya fell pregnant at the age of 12 and was the mother of a 16-year-old son when she competed in Tokyo.