T&T box­er Faith Ram­nath suc­cumbed to a first-fight de­feat 5-0 against Aus­tralian Madeleine Bowen, which sent her pack­ing out of the In­ter­na­tion­al Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (IBA) Women’s World Box­ing Cham­pi­onships in In­stan­bul, Turkey on Tues­day at the Başakşe­hir Genç­lik ve Spor Tesis­leri.    

De­spite the loss, how­ev­er, coach Reynold Cox was pleased with the per­for­mance, say­ing his fight­er was com­pet­i­tive.

Yes­ter­day’s women’s Min­i­mum Weight con­test (45-48kg) was Ram­nath’s sec­ond fight since be­com­ing an elite fight­er but it was noth­ing short of a bat­tle. Both fight­ers en­tered the ring with sim­i­lar size and reach, freely trad­ing punch­es from the first round.

Late in the round, Ram­nath ap­peared to have land­ed the bulk of punch­es as the ref­er­ee was forced to stop the con­test due to Bowen de­vel­op­ing a bloody nos­tril.

How­ev­er, the Aus­tralian got the nod of the five judges.

Cox said he felt strong­ly his charge had won the round, but was not in­ter­est­ed in chal­leng­ing de­ci­sions by of­fi­cials.

In the sec­ond round, an ag­gres­sive Bowen got the edge in a bru­tal slugfest be­fore Ram­nath pulled it to­geth­er in the fi­nal round, as she sought to dance away while Bowen looked for the punch to put her to the can­vas.

In the end, all the judges ruled in Bowen’s favour, as Steven Masiyam­bumbi called it 30-27, Cobzac Manuela Ra­mona and Laz­izi Ath­men scored it 29-28 and the pair of Tsogt­ger­el Tserenkhend and Yasar Cinar called it 30-27.

Cox said, “Yes, it was a com­pet­i­tive match, but ex­pe­ri­ence would have helped her along. We have not worked much with her but from the work that we’ve put in, we are hap­py.”

On Mon­day, Cox told Guardian Me­dia Sports that he was not too con­cerned with medalling at the tour­na­ment, but was rather more con­cerned about his charges be­ing com­pet­i­tive.

“I am hap­py with what I saw, be­cause our fo­cus is the Com­mon­wealth Games in Ju­ly/Au­gust in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land and the Olympic Games in France in 2024.”

To­day, an­oth­er T&T box­er, Tian­na Guy, will take cen­tre stage as she comes up against Sito­ra Tur­dibeko­va of Uzbek­istan in a women’s feath­er­weight di­vi­sion fight.

Cox said he feels con­fi­dent that Guy can pull it off if she stays firm to what she learnt, be­cause of her op­po­nent’s style of fight­ing.

He de­scribed Sito­ra as an ex­pe­ri­enced fight­er, hav­ing gone to the World Youth Games and oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments.

“How­ev­er, her style could well be ex­ploit­ed by Guy to­mor­row (to­day),” Cox said.