Shiva Thapa from Guwahati, Assam, who has been dubbed as the Teenage Boxing Sensation, has won medals in both the AIBA Junior and Youth World Championships, and had also reached the quarter-finals of the 2013 AIBA World Championship.
Thapa is set to fight Cuba’s Robeisy Ramirez Carrazana in the upcoming Round of 32 at Rio 2016.
22 year-old Carrazana has already won Olympic gold at the 2012 London Olympics, which tells you how tough of an opponent he could prove to be for Thapa.
Carrazana has already defeated Shiva Thapa once during the 2010 AIBA Youth Championship finals, and remained unbeaten in all the ten matches he was a part of in the World Series Boxing (WSB) including finishing two of his four WSB matches.
If Thapa is able to defeat Carrazana in the Round of 32, then he might get his retribution for the AIBA Youth Championship loss bringing him one step closer to the finals.
Once Thapa clears out with a win against Carrazana, he might go on to face United States’ very own Shakur Stevenson.
Named after the internationally famous rapper Tupac Shakur, Shakur Stevenson is a star in his own right. After being introduced to boxing by his grandfather, Stevenson started boxing at the mere age of five, and now has a perfect 23-0 international record, being the first American male to win the 2014 Youth and the 2013 Junior World championships respectively.
He also managed to bag a gold medal in the 2014 Youth Olympics. Looking to follow the footsteps of the last American man to win a boxing gold medal, Andre Ward, Shakur Stevenson will bring his A-game to the competition.
Another fighter that Thapa should be on the lookout for is Ireland’s Michael Conlan. The 24 year-old has already won a bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics, and has twice managed to reach the AIBA quarter-finals making him one of Europe’s most successful fighters over a decade.
Uzbekistan’s Murodjon Akhmadaliev, who switched to the Bantamweight division quite late in his career, emerged into the boxing scene in 2012 after winning a silver medal at the AIBA Youth World Championships and a year later, the Uzbekistan National Championship.
Akhmadaliev has also been successful in grabbing a silver medal in the ASBC Asian Confederation Boxing Championships, making him a star in the boxing world. Thapa needs to keep a keen eye on Akhmadaliev as Uzbekistan’s finest may soon fight him in the quarter or semi-finals should they get there.
Last but not the least is China’s very own Zhang Jiawei also known in the boxing scene as the “Dark Wolf”. His moniker “Dark Wolf” precisely paints out his fighting style; he goes for the jugular and being a southpaw, has a natural angle to his strikes.
Jiawei has won a silver medal in 2010’s AIBA Asian Games.
Shiva Thapa is definitely one of India’s finest and nobody can ever doubt his in-ring skills. However his opponents are on the same level as he is, and hence, he needs to stay focused and calm against his opponents to get the better off them and win the Olympic gold which we all would like him to see win.
