Indian boxers aim to better medal colour

| | Ekaterinburg
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Indian boxers aim to better medal colour

Monday, 09 September 2019 | PTI | Ekaterinburg

Asian champion Amit Panghal (52kg) was seeded second and got a bye into the pre-quarterfinals along with three others as Indian boxers aimed for a medal haul of more than a Bronze in the men’s World Boxing Championships, starting here today.

Amit was joined in the last-16 by Asian Silver-winning duo of Kavinder Singh Bisht (57kg and seeded 5th) and Ashish Kumar (75kg and seeded 7th) alongside two-time India Open medallist Sanjeet (91kg) after draws were unveiled on Sunday.

Of these, Ashish (seeded 7th) and Sanjeet are making their debut at the big event, while Panghal and Bisht had finished quarterfinalists in the 2017 Hamburg edition.

“We have got a decent draw and it is upto us to make it a good draw,” Indian Boxing’s High-Performance Director Santiago Nieva said after the draw ceremony.

India will start their campaign on Tuesday with Brijesh Yadav (81kg) taking on Poland’s Maleusz Goinski in his opening round bout.

The coveted Olympic berths are no longer at stake, but the Indians will not be short of motivation when they step inside the ring to better a record which states four medals from 20 editions.

Vijender Singh (2009), Vikas Krishan (2011), Shiva Thapa (2015) and Gaurav Bidhuri (2017) make the exclusive club which has experienced what it feels like to be on the podium at amateur boxing’s marquee event. All these men ended with Bronze medals.

“It is going to be tough. The aim is to improve on what we have done in the past. That’s what we work for,” Nieva said.

It was meant to be an Olympic qualifier and features the revised eight weight categories (52kg, 57kg, 63kg, 69kg, 74kg, 81kg, 91kg, +91kg) earmarked for Tokyo 2020, instead of the traditional 10 divisions.

However, the event was stripped of Olympic qualifier status after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) lost patience with the long-standing administrative mess in the International Boxing Association (AIBA) and took control of the entire process, which will now start next year. With that status gone, the tournament has lost a bit of sheen.

Nevertheless, it is still likely to feature around 450 boxers from 87 countries in 400 fights spread across 12 days.

India’s hopes will be majorly pinned on pint-sized dynamo Panghal. The reticent 23-year-old from Haryana has been on a roll for more than a year.

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