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India made a favourable start to the AIBA World Boxing Championships in Doha, Qatar, with top prospects Shiva Thapa and Vikas Krishan Yadav winning their respective bouts in convincing fashion. (Report courtesy IBNLive.com)
2010 Youth Olympics silver medallist Shiva Thapa made an excellent start to India’s campaign with a 3-0 defeat of Algerian Khalil Litim. The latter was a bronze medallist in last year’s Africa Boxing Cup held in East London, South Africa. Up next for the Assamese boxer is Moroccan Mohamed Hamout, who got a first-round bye. Thapa is an Asian Olympic Qualifiers gold-medallist, and the youngest Indian boxer to qualify for the 2012 Olympics.
Following up his younger compatriot’s performance, Vikas Krishan Yadav was fluent in his 3-0 victory over Hungarian Zoltan Harcsa. Vikas will need to use all the confidence his dominant victory has given him, as he squares off against fourth-seeded Polish boxer Tomasz Jablonski in his next fight. Jablonski is a European Championships silver-medallist.
Vikas Krishan Yadav is a 2014 Asian Games bronze medallist and is the only the second boxer, after Indian ace Vijender Singh, to win a medal in the World Championships. His performance in the 2011 World Boxing Championships earned him a bronze medal.
National boxing coach Gurbax Singh Sandhu had the following to say about their performances: “Both Shiva and Vikas dominated their bouts in the first two rounds and took it easy in the third for obvious reasons. They have tough opponents in the next round but fingers crossed for a good result.”
On the flipside, Manoj Kumar(64 Kg) suffered a shocking upset defeat to Morocco’s Abdelhak Aatakni. A slow start by the 2010 Commonwealth Games gold medallist would be his downfall, as he was not at his usual rhythm. Manoj attempted to redeem himself with a surge in the last three minutes with aggressive flurries, but it was too little, too late as the judges awarded Aatakni the win via 2-1 decision.
