World Championships: Tough draw for Indian boxers

Shiva Thapa will open his campaign on August 28th against the winner of the clash between Kazakhstan's Adilet Kurmetov and Georgia's Otar Eranosyan. 

Published : Aug 25, 2017 13:23 IST , Hamburg

Shiva Thapa will begin his campaign at the World Championships on Monday.
Shiva Thapa will begin his campaign at the World Championships on Monday.
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Shiva Thapa will begin his campaign at the World Championships on Monday.

Shiva Thapa and Vikas Krishan were handed opening-round byes and seedings but the going will not be easy for the Indian boxers, who have got tough draws at the 19th World Championships here. 

The 25-year-old Vikas is the best-ranked among the Indians, given the third seeding in the middleweight (75kg) category. Shiva has been seeded fifth in the lightweight (60kg) category while Sumit Sangwan (91kg) is ranked sixth in his weight category.

All three of them will be in action from the pre-quarterfinal stage.

Watch all the action here

However, the road to the podium won't be an easy one for any of the eight Indians, who will be competing in boxing's marquee event.

For Vikas, the bronze-medallist from the 2011 edition, it will be the winner of tonight's contest between Kenya's John Kyalo and England's Benjamin Whittaker in the last-16 stage on August 27.

Should he win that contest, fourth seed Kamran Shakhsuvarly, an Olympic bronze-medallist from Azerbaijan awaits him in the pre-quarters.

Shiva, on the other hand, will open his campaign on August 28th against the winner of the clash between Kazakhstan's Adilet Kurmetov and Georgia's Otar Eranosyan.

If he wins his tournament-opener, the 24-year-old Asian Championships silver-medallist might face the man who beat him to the gold — fourth seed Elnur Abuduraimov of Uzbekistan. Shiva had won a world championship bronze in the 2015 edition.

Shiva and Abuduraimov's clash in the Asian Championship final had not gone the full distance and the Indian had lost in a split verdict after a head butt from his rival left him bleeding.

Another Asian Championship silver-medallist Sumit will start with a contest against Australia's Jason Whateley on August 27. A win in that fight is likely to set him up against Kazakhstan's Olympic silver-medallist Vassiliy Levit. 

The third-seeded Levit had beaten Sumit just a few months back in the final of the Asian Championships in Tashkent.

The seasoned Manoj Kumar (69kg) will begin his campaign against Moldova's Vasilii Belous before squaring off against fourth-seeded Venezuelan Gabriel Jose Maestre Perez on the evening of August 28.

Asian Games bronze-medallist Satish Kumar (+91kg) and Kavinder Bisht (52kg) will be in action on Saturday. 

Satish will be up against Azerbaijan's Mahammadrasul Majidov, while Kavinder will have Japan's Ryusei Baba as his opponent. 

Gaurav Bidhuri (56kg) and Asian Championships' bronze-medallist Amit Phangal (49kg) will be opening the day for India in the evening session on Friday. 

Gaurav will face Australia's Sam Goodman, while Amit will go up against Italy's Federico Serra.

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