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Indian boxer wins gold at Asian Olympic qualifiers

2008-02-06

New Delhi, Feb 2: Indian pugilist Akhil Kumar Saturday won the gold medal at the second Asian Olympic Boxing Qualifying Tournament at Bangkok by defeating Olympic silver medallist Worapoj Petchkoom of Thailand.

Akhil defeated Petchkoom with an impressive margin of 21-11 in the bantamweight category (54 kg) and earned the Best Boxer of the Championship award, an Indian Amateur Boxing Federation (IABF) release said.

Akhil Friday, became the second Indian boxer to qualify for the Beijing Olympics when he outclassed Ryom Chol Jin from North Korea in the semi-finals.

However, it was not a cakewalk for Akhil in the final, as the Commonwealth gold medallist had to combat a local hero in front of a partisan crowd and to his dismay he was down 3-4 at the end of the first round.

The second round too was evenly poised at 7-7. However, it was in the third round that Akhil shifted gears and sped away to a 13-9 lead.

In the fourth round there was no stopping Akhil as he stormed his way into the title with a score of 21-11.

Meanwhile, another Indian boxer Jitender Kumar was unlucky in the 51 kg category as he suffered an eyebrow cut in his second bout of the tournament.

Amandeep (48 kg), Dinesh (81 kg) and Manpreet (91 kg) won three bronze medals for India but did not qualify for the Olympics.

However, they have a final chance to book their passage to Beijing in a qualifying tournament, which will be held at Kazakhstan from March 15.

The Indian squad for the Kazakhstan tournament will be selected from the National Inter Zonal Boxing Championships scheduled to be held at Akola, Maharashtra Feb 10-14.

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