The fit-again duo of Sumit Sangwan (91kg) and Nikhat Zareen (51kg) was among the three gold medallists in India\u2019s stupendous campaign at the 56th Belgrade International Boxing Tournament in Serbia.<\/p>\n
Himanshu Sharma (49kg), who defeated Algeria\u2019s Mohammed Touareg 5-0 in his final bout, was the third top spot finisher last night as India ended the tournament with three gold, five silver and five bronze medals in all.<\/p>\n
Continuing his fine comeback from a wrist injury, Sumit, an Asian silver-medallist, defeated Ecuador\u2019s Castillo Torres in a unanimous 5-0 verdict to claim the yellow metal. The 24-year-old later dedicated the triumph to his father Surender Sangwan.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has been my rock through everything; I dedicate this medal to my bapu (father). All the hard work I had put in for the Commonwealth Games came in handy here after I missed out on that. My hand feels completely fine now,\u201d Sumit, who missed a trip to Gold Coast after going down in the trial, told PTI from Belgrade.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis performance is a huge morale-booster for me and I am hoping to build on it in the coming months. The boxer from Ecuador I faced in the final was a tough opponent, very aggressive but I didn\u2019t allow him to connect,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Former junior world champion Nikhat, also returning to action after recovering from a shoulder injury, notched up a 5-0 win over Greece\u2019s Koutsoeorgopoulou Aikaterini to pick up a morale-boosting gold.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am very satisfied with how I performed in this tournament. My shoulder is a bit stiff right now so it was by no means an easy campaign. The boxers from Russia and Serbia I fought were very muscular and physically it was draining,\u201d Nikhat said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy opponent in the semifinal Nina Radovanovic is a former professional boxer and she was very tough to fight. That bout took a lot out of me and my shoulder would need a bit of caring for once I am back,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Surprisingly, the contingent did not have a single physio travelling with it for the tournament to take care of these niggles.<\/p>\n
Signing off with silver medals among women were Jamuna Boro (54kg) and Ralte Lalfakmawii (+81kg). While Jamuna lost to local favourite Andjela Brankovic 1-4, Lalfakmawii went down 2-3 to Turkey\u2019s Demir Sennur.<\/p>\n
In the men\u2019s draw, Laldinmawia (52kg), Varinder Singh (56kg) and Pawan Kumar (69kg) had to be content with silver medals.<\/p>\n
Laldinmawia was beaten 0-5 by Korea\u2019s Kim Inkyn, while Varinder lost 2-3 to Brazillian Arilson Goncalves.<\/p>\n
Pawan was also defeated in a split verdict, going down 1-4 to Croatia\u2019s Petar Cetinic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The fit-again duo of Sumit Sangwan (91kg) and Nikhat Zareen (51kg) was among the three gold medallists in India\u2019s stupendous campaign at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29588"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29590,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29588\/revisions\/29590"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}