The 3rd Asian Women’s Indoor Games commenced from 31st October 2009 at Hanoi, Vietnam and Sri Lanka’s women’s boxing team comprising of Anusha Kodituwakku (Pin Wt), Nilmini Jayasinghe (Fly Wt), Sithari Sandareka (Bantam Wt) and Niluka Karunarathna (Feather wt) participated at this tournament.

Anusha Kodituwakku went against Mari Murayama of Japan in the first fight in the preliminaries. Although Mari put on a brave fight, she was no match for the agile Anusha Kodituwakku who kept on scoring well until she won the bout by 25 points to 8.

In the quarter-finals, Anusha Kodituwakku beat Mal Rai of Nepal by 12 points to 1 and won the bronze medal in the semi-finals after she lost to hard hitting Nguyen Hhi Hoa of Vietnam by 4 points to 14 points.

Anusha was the champion of the Asian Boxing Championships held in Vietnam in 2006. She is also the only member from the 19 member contingent from Sri Lanka to have won a medal so far at this year’s Asian Women’s Indoor Games.

Nilmini Jayasinghe, the gold medal winner at the International Women’s Championships in Russia this year, lost to powerful Chhoto Loura of India by 10:2 in the quarter finals. Sithari Sandaraka was outclassed by Zhang Qin of China in the 2nd round. Niluka Karunarathna lost to Ngo Thi Chung of Vietnam by 3:14.