Parveen Hooda beats Li Shu 4-1 to reach Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games final, one win from gold

Parveen Hooda beat China’s Li Shu 4-1 in the women’s 65kg semi-final at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Tuesday and is one victory away from the gold medal.

Hooda was 22 when she won bronze at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, a medal that was later removed from the record. The International Testing Agency suspended Parveen for whereabouts failures, with the ban keeping her out of competition for nearly two years; the suspension also cost her the chance to compete for an Olympic quota place and ultimately ended her hopes of making the Paris Games. In 2022 she had earlier taken bronze at the IBA World Championships and won gold at the Asian Boxing Championships.

When her suspension ended, Parveen returned to competition and claimed gold at the World Boxing Cup Finals in late 2025. At the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow she then lost her quarter-final to England’s Sacha Hickey on a split decision and left without a medal.

Against Li Shu, both boxers began cautiously before Parveen found her rhythm and began landing counter-punches; three of the five judges awarded her the opening round. She controlled the distance in the second round, making Li pay when the Chinese boxer tried to close in, and all five judges scored that round in Parveen’s favour.

Li attempted to change the contest in the third by making it more physical and pushing forward, but Parveen remained patient, picked her shots and took the final round 4-1 to secure her place in the final. The overall judges’ scoreline for the bout was 4-1 in Hooda’s favour.

Hooda is now only the third Indian woman to reach an Asian Games final; MC Mary Kom won gold in 2014 and Lovlina Borgohain took silver at the previous edition. Her opponent in the final will be Chen Nien-chin of Chinese Taipei, who won bronze at the Paris Olympics.

One fight stands between Parveen Hooda and the Asian Games title: she will face Chen Nien-chin in the women’s 65kg final on Friday.