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What's the story?
Five gold, two silver and one bronze medal were clinched by Indian boxers at the 48th Grand Prix Usti Nad Labem tournament in the Czech Republic. The tournament saw Shiva Thapa (60 kg), Amit Phangal (52 kg), former Commonwealth Games gold-medallist Manoj Kumar (69 kg), Satish Kumar (+91 kg) and Gaurav Bidhuri (56kg) claim gold medals after their respective clashes last night.
On the other hand, Manish Panwar (81 kg) and Kavinder Bisht (52 kg) bagged silver medals, while Sumit Sangwan (91 kg) claimed bronze after losing in the semifinals.
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One of the striking features of this tournament was that Phangal, despite being a 49 Kg boxer, put up a fight against Bisht who was a category above, standing at 52 Kg.
The heart of the matter
The Indian Olympians, Thapa, Bhiduri and Manoj asserted their dominance over their opponents with a 5-0 victory respectively. While Thapa defeated Filip Meszaros of Slovakia, Manoj gained an easy upper hand against the local favourite David Kotrc. Poland's Iwanow Jaroslaw was beaten with ease by Bhiduri.
Phangal and Satish, the other two gold winners fought off difficult yet successful bouts against their opponents. Phangal bagged his gold against Bisht in a 3-2 victory, while Satish had to battle it out against Germany's Max Keller. Panwar settled for a silver after losing to Germany's Ibragim Bazuev.
What's next?
After the commendable performance in the Czech Republic, seven of the boxers, namely Amit, Gaurav, Kavinder, Sumit, Satish, Manoj and Shiva have been scheduled to compete in Germany's Hamburg in the World championships between 25th August and 2nd September. Vikas Krishnan, another Indian who wasn't part of the Czech Republic team will also be competing in Germany.
Author's take
After this impressive performance at the Czech Republic, where Indian boxing saw an entirely new level of success, it can be said that the future of Indian boxing is in good hands. With the world championship tournament coming up in Germany, here's keeping our fingers crossed for yet another string of medals by our Indian boxers.
