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Vikas Krishan (75kg) was the lone Indian who managed to storm into the finals of the Asian Boxing Championship in Bangkok while three others had to settle for a bronze medal. The former World Champion defeated Iraq's Waheed Abdulridha 3-0 to set up a clash with Uzbekistan's Bektemir Melikuziev in the final tomorrow.
On the other hand, Satish Kumar (91kg), L Devendro (49kg) and defending champion Shiva Thapa (56kg) lost their respective semifinals despite a healthy fight. All of them however, assured themselves a berth in the next month’s World Championships, the first qualifier for 2016 Rio Olympics.
Satish gave a fighting performance against second seed Wang Zhibao of China but unfortunately lost the match 3-0. Devendro lost 1-2 to top-seeded Uzbek Hasanboy Dusmatov.
Shiva, on the other hand, went 1-2 to Uzbekistan's Murodjon Akhmadaliev. The defending champion dominated the opening round but lost his way in the next two as Akhmadaliev broke through his defences to score a come-from-behind victory.
The sad part of the entire thing here is that, though Indian boxers assured three bronze medals for sure and another one will be fighting for the top position podium tomorrow, no Indian national anthem will be played for them. In fact, all medals won will not even be India’s.
Why? Boxing India (BI) has answers to it. Three years back in 2012, AIBA derecognized the Indian Boxing Federation for discrepancies in its election process and this year, there is fighting within Boxing India that has resulted in a repeat of the same decision, derecognisation at the hands of AIBA.
Boxing India came into being when AIBA suspended erstwhile national body Indian Amateur Boxing Federation. However, this June, the AIBA again created an Ad-Hoc committee to run the sport in India as it did not clear the status of the existing body. And this is the reason why no name and country logo or anthem can be used in International tournaments.
At a time when Indian boxers are punching their way into glory in Bangkok, the power play within the authorities in India took another turn in Guwahati. BI apparently approached the current Ad Hoc committee to resolve issues while the Ad Hoc committee believes there is nothing to resolve.
The Executive committee members of Boxing India hence met this Monday in Guwahati to decide the fate of the body. The revival of the National Championships was also one of the core issues that was discussed.
They took a few decisions which include organizing women’s nationals in October and authorising vice-president T Meren Paul to represent the body as acting president until elections.
According to a report in the New Indian Express, a senior official of the Ad Hoc committee did confirm Boxing India's approach for support, but revealed that they declined the offer.
