Services, Railways dominate national boxing championships

Pune   :  The domination of Services and Railways boxers was evident in the early session on the fourth day of the third Elite Men Boxing National Championships at the AIS rings here as six each of their pugilists entered the medal rounds on Wednesday.

The Services boxers who made it to the semi-finals included Deepak (46kg), P.L. Prasad (52kg), Madan Lal (56kg), Manish Kaushik (60kg), Duryodhan Singh Negi (69kg) and Manjeet Singh (75kg). 

From the Railways, Sachin Siwach (52kg), Gaurav Bidhuri (56kg), Ankush Dahiya (60kg), Rohit Tokas (64), Dinesh (69kg) and Prayag Chauhan (75kg) were successful.

But it was Himanshu Sharma of Punjab who, in the light flyweight (46kg) category proved his superiority over Neeraj Swamy of Delhi as the Belgrade International Boxing gold winner won his bout 4:1 to enter the semi-finals.

Manish Kaushik defeated Sunil Chauhan from Uttar Pradesh with 5:0 verdict as the CWG silver medal winner pounded combination blows of his hapless UP rival and romped home easy winners. Replicating the results was his teammate Deepak who downed Vinod Tanwar of Haryana as the former won without having it sweat it out much on the day.

Prasad, a well-known boxer on the national scene, was equally severe on his Andhra Pradesh opponent, P.A. Raju, who failed to stop the Services pugilist from advancing. The 5:0 decisions in favour of Prasad made it more than clear who conquered the ring in the afternoon bout.

In the middle weight class, Manjeet Sngh managed the second round RSC verdict when he forced the All India Police boxer, Faiz Ahemmed, take a couple of standing counts. In the second, the referee stopped the contest, giving Manjeet the advantage.

As for the Railways, Sachin found an easy prey in his West Bengal rival, Manjeet Kumr Shaw, who brooked no challenge to the winning punches from the former World Youth Boxing champion. The 19-year-old from Haryana was not only calculative in his approach but also never missed the opportunity to score to make an impression on the judges very early in the first and second rounds.

Rohit Tokas, another highly rated RSPB boxer, started with a jab and upper cut before going all out against Sachin of Chandigarh in the 64kg category. The Chandigarh boxer, all the time ducking to avoid Tokas, ended up without scoring a point to make a take exit.