Olympics Boxing - Sangwan loses close bout

In a very closely fought bout, Indian teenager Sumit Sangwan lost out in his first round of the Men’s Light Heavy (81kg) against Brazil’s Yamaguchi Falcao Florentino.

The Indian started the fight cautiously with Yamaguchi taking the lead in the first round. The tall Indian couldn’t take advantage of his height and the Brazilian looked swifter than the red clad Sangwan. Yamaguchi took to Sangwan’s body and landed serious jabs taking advantage of Sangwan’s patchy defence. Sangwan, however, made a recovery and fought back to end the first round trailing at 4-5 points.

The second round saw a more confident Sangwan as the strapping Indian looked more attacking. He dropped his guard and went on the offensive. Yamaguchi, too, tightened his defence and lived up to his first round performance. Both fighters exchanged blows and ended the second round with Yamaguchi leading by 4-5 points.

The third round saw Sangwan at his best. He went all out at Yamaguchi and took advantage of his height. He unfurled a flurry of punches that put Yamaguchi on the defence and Sangwan gained the upper hand to take the round by 6-5 points.

However, an attacking last round was not enough for Sumit Sangwan to progress to the next round. Yamaguchi was handed the match with a slender lead of 15-14.

This experience should be a turning point in the life of the Indian teenager as one had hardly heard of Sumit Sangwan till he qualified for the London Olympics. He caught the attention when he won the gold medal at the Asian Olympic Qualifiers in Astana, Kazakhstan in April. He kept the faith of the national selectors when he qualified for the London Olympics after he was picked for the Olympic qualifiers over 2010 Asian Games silver medallist and Olympian Dinesh Kumar.

Though it’s curtains for him in this edition of the Olympics, Sumit Sangwan definitely showed glimpses of a great future ahead of him.