NEW DELHI: As many as 13 newly-crowned national champions had boarded the flight to Serbia to represent India at the AIBA men's World Championships in Belgrade. Disappointingly, only one out of them - young Akash Kumar (54kg) - has made it to the medal round after assuring himself of at least a bronze.
The 21-year-old from Haryana's Bhiwani district will look to keep the Tricolour fluttering at the $2.6 million event by winning his semifinal clash against Kazakhstan's Makhmud Sabyrkhan on Thursday evening. Rest of the squad members have all been shown the exit door after suffering defeats at different stages of the competition.
Four boxers - Sanjeet, Narender Berwal, Shiva Thapa and Nishant Dev - managed to reach the quarterfinals and were just one win away from ensuring a medal. However, all of them were simply outclassed by their respective rivals on Tuesday night. More dishearteningly, Sanjeet, Narender and Shiva lost 5-0 without even putting up a decent fight.
Akash's semifinal appearance has managed to save the blushes in an otherwise disappointing campaign. Had it not been for the reigning national champion in the 54kg category's dominating 5-0 win over 2016 Rio Olympics silver medallist, Venezuela's Yoel Finol Rivas, in the quarterfinals, India would have returned empty-handed from the meet for the first time since the 2015 edition in Doha. India had returned medal-less from the 2013 edition of the men's event in Kazakhstan's Almaty after participating in the event under the banner of the International Boxing Association (IBA) following the suspension of the country's boxing federation (IBF) owing to alleged 'manipulation' in its elections.
Previously, India had won at least a medal each in every edition of the World Championships since Vijender Singh's bronze in the 2009 Milan meet. All the 13 boxers had made the cut for the Worlds after securing the pole position at the senior Nationals in Karnataka's Bellary in September this year.
The below-par performance at the Worlds marks another underwhelming chapter for the Indian boxing, after their not-so-impressive show at the Tokyo Olympics in July-August.
A record nine men's and women's boxers had qualified for the Olympics, but only Lovlina Borgohain in the women's welterweight category (69kg) managed to secure a medal, a bronze. In fact, except for Lovlina, only Pooja Rani (75kg) and Satish Kumar (+91kg) had managed to reach the quarters in Tokyo.
India's disappointing campaign at the Worlds has now put pressure on the high performance director (HPD), Swedish Santiago Nieva. After the poor show in the Olympics, the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) had put Nieva on notice while offering him extension for another three months till the Worlds. It was communicated to Nieva that another below-par show would mean that he could well be heading back home.
It will now be interesting to see whether the BFI makes another exception for him by continuing with him or replace him.
