Descended from boxing royalty, Jaismine carves out her own legacy with world title

As a child growing up in the town of Bhiwani in Haryana, Jaismine Lamboria always had a sense of the kind of legacy she was born into. If Bhiwani is one of boxing’s strongholds in India, the Lamboria family is one of the heavyweights.

Jaismine’s great-grandfather, Captain Hawa Singh, was one of the pioneers of the sport in India. He remains the only Indian boxer to win consecutive gold medals at the Asian Games, and later founded the Bhiwani Boxing Club, which produced boxers like Vijender Singh and Akhil Kumar.

Her uncles, Sandeep and Parvinder, were national champions and international boxers too. She’d grown up hearing stories of their achievements and gawping at medals, pictures, and trophies mounted high up on the family house’s walls.

For all their accomplishments, though, none of Jaismine’s illustrious predecessors ever earned the title of World Champion. That’s what Jaismine is now. Late on Saturday night in Liverpool, the 24-year-old became a boxing world champion, beating Olympic silver medallist Julia Szermeta of Poland by a 4-1 split decision in the final of the women’s 57kg category.

The bout was a hard-fought one, if only because of the pedigree of her Polish opponent. Szermeta took the first round 3-2 on the judges’ score cards before Jaismine stormed back to sweep the second round 5-0, and then was judged the better boxer in the final round on four of the five judges’ cards.

“I think even though Jaismine was the better boxer in the first round, the judges were going by the Polish boxer’s credentials. But in the second round, Jaismine started becoming more active and connected 8 clear punches, and it was impossible to deny her. The scores were level after two rounds, and then Jaismine’s counter punching sealed the match in the third round,” say D Chandralal, chief coach of the Indian women’s boxing team

Turning point

It’s a result that Chandralal thinks could be the turning point of her career. “There’s a different kind of confidence that you get from being a World Champion, especially in an Olympic weight division. Jaismine had come into this competition after winning a World Cup, and despite that, she didn’t get the top seed because the featherweight division is one of the most competitive weight classes in women’s boxing. There were 7 Olympians who were competing in this weight category, ” he says.

Key to her victory, Chandralal says, is that the Jaismine who showed up in Liverpool is a far-improved one from even just a year ago.

It wasn’t that Jaismine wasn’t a competent fighter. Trained by her uncles, Parvinder and Sandeep, in Bhiwani, she had earned the reputation as one of the best fighters in her weight category in India, becoming a regular in the Indian team by 2022.

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However, for all her pedigree and natural skills – she is a rangy, accurate counterpuncher – Jaismine seemed to be missing something at the elite level. Although she won bronze at the 2021 Asian Championships and 2022 Commonwealth Games, she was knocked out in her quarterfinal at the Asian Games in Hangzhou. She subsequently qualified for the 2024 Olympics after the previous Indian qualifier in the featherweight category — Parveen Hooda– failed a dope test, but then was eliminated in the very first round of the Paris Games.

“On the one hand it’s not a small achievement to make it to the Olympics but at the same time she was really disappointed that she didn’t do anything with that opportunity,” says her uncle and coach Sandeep Lamboria.

According to chief coach Chandralal, the results were not unexpected. “Jaismine had all the physical qualities of a great boxer. She is tall and has good reach and solid technique but if you ever met her you would wonder what she was doing in a combat sport. She’s the sweetest, most quiet and non confrontational girl. That personality also somehow was showing up inside the ring. She was very cautious. She would only throw one or two punches and try to win the round that way,” says Chandralal.

New look fighter

After the disappointment in Paris, Jaismine has made a conscious choice to become a far more proactive fighter. “She might not seem like a natural combat sports athlete, but Jaismine is very intelligent and very strong mentally. When she understood how she had to adapt her game at the international level, she showed the maturity to do exactly that. The old version of Jaismine would go into a shell very quickly. But now she’s much more active. She is still a long-range fighter, but she punches a lot more, which doesn’t allow her opponents to get into any rhythm. Her movement in the ring is exceptional,” says Chandralal.

He says the change was first on display at the Boxing World Cup in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in July this year, where Jaismine beat Pan American champion Jucielen Romeu to win gold. While she was still flying under the radar in the lead-up to the World Championships, her uncle Sandeep says she was confident about her prospects. “She told me she was going to win the gold,” he says.

At the World Championships, a lot more people have started taking note. “The president of World Boxing, Boris Van der Vorst, came up to us after the final and praised her footwork and movement,” says Chandralal.

Although she’s now a world champion, coach Chandralal doesn’t expect Jaismine to relax anytime soon. “This is just a milestone, but not the finish line. She’s going to be the hot favourite for the World Cup in Delhi (In November this year). But there’s also going to be the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games next year. These are not easy competitions, but if Jaismine boxes how she is doing, she will be very hard to beat,” he says.

Published on Sep 14, 2025