Featherweight (54-57 kilograms), Women

If you had to nominate both the most popular and the most surprising result of the boxing tournament at the Tokyo Olympics it would combine in the exploits of the host nation’s Sena Irie, a 20-year-old psychology student, in the début appearance of this class on the Olympic programme.

Irie had shown glimpses of her ability in her few pre-Olympic international appearances but she was given little chance of winning gold, despite the home “crowd” support. However, Irie made the most of a series of upsets in the second round of fights which saw all four seeded fighters exit the competition in their first contests. The top seed, world champion Lin Yu-ting of Chinese Taipei fell to Nesthy Petecio of the Philippines.

The Japanese fighter won a closely contested semi-final by outlasting British opponent Karriss Artingstall to book a place in the gold medal bout against Petecio, who outpointed Italy’s Irma Testa earlier in the day.

The final was a repeat of a bout from the 2019 World Championships, only this time Irie was two years more experienced. Irie’s long range work captured the first round though Petecio upped her game to take the second. With all depending on the final three minutes the fight descended into a messy round of clinching and holding until the final minute where Irie imposed her jab on her tiring opponent. Four judges scored the bout 29-28 for Irie, while the other had it a 30-27 shutout.