Wada, Shinohara, Kinoshita banner Japan in Women’s World Championships

Top national boxers Madoka Wada, Hikaru Shinohara and Rinka Kinoshita will lead Japan’s eight-strong team in the 12th International Boxing Association (IBA) Women’s World Boxing Championships scheduled to fire off on May 9 at the Sinan Erdem Dome in Istanbul, Turkey.

The 27-year-old Wada, a bronze medalist in the 2014 and 2018 editions, is seen as the country’s best bet for this year’s world tilt as she is set to battle it out in the minimumweight (48kg) division.

Asian Boxing Confederation (ASBC) Asian Youth Boxing Championships 2019 gold winner Shinohara will look to bounce back from her recent international stint woes due to COVID-19 positive results when she competes in the light flyweight (50kg) class.

Kinoshita, a bronze medalist in the AIBA Women’s Youth World Championships 2017, will try to keep her momentum from winning a silver in the flyweight (52kg) category of the first-ever ASBC Asian U22 held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan last January.

Joining the three are Satsuki Yoshizawa (bantam-54kg), Mona Kimura (feather-57 kg), Ayaka Taguchi (light-60kg), Mai Kito (light welter-63kg) and Arisa Tsubata (light middle-70kg).

Tokyo Olympics featherweight champion Sena Irie and flyweight bronze winner Tsukimi Namiki missed last year’s selection sparring for the national team members slated to participate in the world championships as they were given rest following their successful campaign in the Summer Games.

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