Shiva Thapa and Vikas Krishan will be among India's best bets to better both the colour and number of medals at the 19th World Boxing Championships, starting here today
Medal prospects Shiva Thapa (60 kg)
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Shiva Thapa and Vikas Krishan will be among India's best bets to better both the colour and number of medals at the 19th World Boxing Championships, starting here today.
Placed joint 49th in the all-time medal count, India have a bronze each to show for from the 2009, 2011 and the 2015 World Championships.
Shiva (2015), Vikas (2011) and the now-professional Vijender Singh (2009) are the only ones to have been on the podium of the prestigious event, which doubles up as an Olympic qualifier in alternate editions.
Vikas Krishan (75 kg)
For this edition, an eight-strong team has made the cut through the Asian Championships held in Tashkent earlier this year. "Our build-up has been fantastic. We had a good Asian Championship, where the boys won two silver and two bronze medals and finished third overall," the team's Swedish coach Santiago Nieva told PTI.
"Then we went to France and Czech Republic for training-cum-competition trips and the results were excellent there. So, I am hopeful of a strong performance but I don't want to make any predictions about medals," he added.
To be tied with Australia, Tajikistan and Czech Republic in the all-time medal tally isn't exactly a true reflection of how far Indian boxing has come since Vijender won the breakthrough bronze in 2009 in Milan. "This World Championship is going to be slightly different from the previous one because the draws will be opened up. There have been changes in weight categories, some of those who went to Rio Olympics last year have quit. So there is going to be a lot of churning," Nieva pointed out.
"So, yes, we can hope for more than just one bronze medal," he added.
Shiva, 24, a double Olympian with three back-to-back Asian Championship medals, who won a bantamweight 56kg bronze in the 2015 world championship, will be competing in the lightweight 60kg category here. The new weight category transition has gone well given his silver at the Asian Championships three months ago.
Another bright medal prospect for India is without doubt Middleweight champ Vikas. Not to be counted out is veteran Manoj Kumar (69kg), forever the dark horse who manages to surprise with tenacious performances, and Sumit Sangwan (91kg), who made a fine comeback from injury to claim a silver medal at the Asian Championships earlier this year.
India squad
Amit Phangal (49kg), Kavinder Bisht (52kg), Gaurav Bidhuri (56kg), Shiva Thapa (60kg), Manoj Kumar (69kg), Vikas Krishan (75kg), Sumit Sangwan (91kg) and Satish Kumar (+91kg).
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