Men’s Boxing National Championship: Kaushik, Tokas and Sachin off to a good start
World Championship bronze-medallist Manish Kaushik and Railways’ pair of Rohit Tokas and Sachin began their campaign with impressive wins at the National Boxing Championships here on Saturday. Kaushik (63.5kg) had beaten Madhya Pradesh’s Prabhat Dwivedi in the first two rounds before the referee was forced to stop the contest (RSC) at the end of the third round. He will now face Sandeep Dhoni of Andhra Pradesh in the Round of 16 on Tuesday.
Tokas (67kg), a bronze medalist at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, defeated Uttarakhand’s Rahul in a 5-0 unanimous decision to advance to the round of 16 on Monday. Tokas’s teammate Sachin (57kg), also from the Railway Sports Promotion Board (RSPB), defeated Raman Sharma of Dadra and Nagar Haveli 5-0. Sachin, the 2016 youth world champion, did not give the opponent a chance to return anywhere in the match.
He will face Neeraj of Haryana in the Round of 32 on Monday. Reigning Asian Championship bronze medalist Govind (48kg) got a walkover and the Thailand Open champion boxer will now face Jammu and Kashmir’s Mansingh in the round of 16 on Tuesday. Haryana’s Priyandhu Dabas (54kg) defeated Prakash Singh of Chhattisgarh from RSC.
Record six-time Asian medalist Shiva Thapa will start his campaign in Round 16. Thapa, representing Assam, got a bye in the first round and will now face Delhi’s Jaswinder Singh on Monday. Sanjeet and Narendra of the Army Sports Promotion Board (SSCB) will also start their campaign from Round 16, having also got a bye in the first round. A total of 386 boxers are competing in 13 different categories in the National Boxing Championship.
