Philippines' Aira Villegas (in blue) punches Morocco's Yasmine Mouttaki in the women's 50kg preliminaries round of 32 boxing match during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the North Paris Arena, in Villepinte on July 28, 2024. Mohd Rasfan, AFP

(UPDATED) Filipina boxer Aira Villegas will go home with a medal from her very first Olympics stint.

Villegas showed great heart in edging France's Wassila Lkhadiri in their quarterfinal showdown of the women's 50kg division, winning a close split decision on Saturday at the North Paris Arena (early Sunday in Manila).

Three judges scored the bout in favor of Villegas (29-28, 29-28, 29-28), while the other two had it for the home bet (30-27, 29-28).

With Villegas' feat, the Philippines is now assured of at least two medals from the Paris Olympics, after Carlos Yulo won the country's first gold earlier in the day.

It was a hard-earned win for the 29-year-old Villegas, who battled not just Lkhadiri but also the partisan crowd at the venue who cheered mightily for their athlete throughout the three-round affair.

Villegas landed some eye-catching combinations in the first round, enough to win the opener. But Lkhadiri worked her way back in the second, stinging Villegas with her right hand several times to tie the bout.

With the match in the balance, both fighters left it all in the ring in the third and final round. Villegas arguably got the better of the exchanges, though Lkhadiri showed her toughness by weathering the Filipina's combinations. 

Ultimately, Villegas did enough to get the nod of the judges and ramp up the campaign of the Philippine boxing team, which had taken a blow earlier in the day after Carlo Paalam bowed out in a painful defeat to Australia’s Charlie Senior.

Nesthy Petecio, a silver medalist in Tokyo, is also still in the hunt for a medal in Paris.

Villegas had gotten the Philippine boxing team's campaign off to a fine start when she overcame Yasmine Mouttaki of Morroco in the round-of-32, then followed it up with an impressive upset of the second seed in their division, Roumaysa Boualam of Algeria, in the round-of-16.

A bronze medalist in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games, Villegas punched her ticket to Paris last March in the 1st Boxing World Olympic Qualification Tournament in Italy. 

READ: Aira Villegas takes down Moroccan foe, advances to round-of-16

READ: Aira Villegas stuns Algeria's Boualam, advances to q'finals

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