Indian Boxing: Vikas Krishan settles for Bronze at the World Championships

The Indian challenge at the 2011 AIBA World Championships came to an end with Asian Games gold medalist Vikas Krishan (69kg) suffering a defeat in the semi-finals of the tournament. The 19 year equaled, but could not go past Beijing Olympics bronze medalist Vijender Singh’s feat of bagging a bronze at the World Championships, which the latter did in 2009. But it was a stunning performance by the teenage prodigy who made it all the way to the semi-finals in his very first senior world championship and also qualified for the London Olympics in the process.

Vikas, making his welter weight debut, defeated Vasili Belous of Moldova in a hard fought contest to find a place in the last four of his category in the Championships. In the semis, he was up against Shelestyuk of Ukraine. Shelestyuk had beaten world number 3 and 2009 world championship silver medalist Andrey Zamkovoy of Russia in the quarters to set up the semis clash.

Both the boxers started cautiously, waiting for the other to make the move. The Ukrainian boxer, who seemed to have studied Vikas’ moves well, brought all his experience to the fore and did not let the young Indian play his usual game. With some powerful infighting he took a 4:2 lead in the first round. Vikas tried hard to get back in the game but could not break the strong defence of Shelestyuk. The 2010 European Continental bronze medalist managed to open up a 4 point gap. Vikas, last year’s Youth World Champion, came back strongly in the final round with some feisty combinations as he scored 6 points as opposed to Shelestyuk’s 5, but in the he end fell short. He lost on points 12:15 and will have to be content with a bronze medal performance.

The Indian team showed great talent and potential, putting exceptional performances against world class boxers at the AIBA World Boxing Championships. The tournament witnessed 4 Indian boxers make it to the quarter-final round and qualifying for the 2012 London Games. Vikas Krishan (69 kg), Jai Bhagwan (60 kg), Manoj Kumar (64 kg) and Devendro Singh (49kg) sealed Olympic berths. This has to be India’s best performance in any World Championships or Olympic qualifiers. At the Chicago world Championships Antharesh Lakra was the only one to qualify for Being Olympics. 64 boxers have so far qualified from Baku for London Olympics. Russia and Ukraine have 5 boxers, while Cuba, India, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan all have 4 making it to the Olympics.