Guyana’s Abiola Jackman suffered a unanimous decision loss yesterday to Nupur Sheoran in her opening round-of-16 bout at the ongoing International Boxing Association (IBA) Women’s World Boxing Championships in India.
The scorecards yesterday read 5-0 in favor of Sheoran, 23, who is one of India’s top prospects and its heavyweight national champion. Despite the one-sided nature of the scorecards, Jackman’s coach, on the sojourn, Sebert Blake stated that his charge gave a good account of herself during her debut at the championships at The Indira Gandhi Arena.
“Abiola has not competed internationally since 2019, where she won the Youth Caribbean Championship in Trinidad and I think she did exceedingly well. It was a good performance in my judgement, she gave a good account of herself and can only grow from here.”
Blake added, “This is her first senior fight and she did her best and this is a stepping stone to many other things and I think she will do better going forward. When she gets back home she has to put a bit more effort into training and she will do great.”
Meanwhile, Abiola’s sister, Alesha Jackman, springs into action today against Khadichabonu Abdullaeva of Uzbekistan at 14:00hrs Guyana time.
The pair will match gloves in the light welterweight division in the round-of-32.
Blake, a Three-Star IBA coach has also sprang into action and is on the cusp of adding another accomplishment to his post retirement resume’. He commenced the IBA’s Cutman Technician Certification Course yesterday. Blake told this publication that “The beginning of the course was good for me. We went through wrapping of the hands and how to prevent injuries. The theory and practical and the anatomy of the hands.”
He added, “My theory and practical was marked excellent, but we have a few more days of studies and tests and a final examination at the end” Blake concluded.
