Defending champion Chote Lal of Services dashed the hopes of Olympian Diwakar Prasad of Railways in a semifinal bout of the featherweight category in the Sahara 56th senior National boxing championship for men being held at the Saroornagar Indoor Stadium here on Saturday.
It was a keen tussle between the boxers from arch-rival camps — Railways and Services. Both were equally matched and traded punches throughout the contest. The score read 4-4 at the end of three rounds.
But in the count-back, the 21-year-old Chote Lal was declared winner. This was his second major victory over Diwakar.
Polished performance
In the flyweight category, Suranjoy Singh of Services gave a polished performance to outclass M. Krishna of Chhattisgarh forcing the referee to stop the contest in the second round. In the final, Suranjoy’s rival will be Santosh of Goa.
Karnataka’s V. Durga Rao put up a brave display in the bantamweight semifinal against Kuldeep of Haryana.
In the first two rounds, both adopted a defensive approach and Kuldeep could establish only a slender 4-2 lead at the end of round two.
It was only in the third round that both began attacking more frequently and Kuleep managed to take advantage of openings in his rival’s defence to score a 10-5 victory.
The results (all semifinals): Lightfly: 48kg: Nanao Singh (SSCB) bt Sunil Shukla (Jha) 9-1; Paramjeet Singh (Chd) bt Amandeep Singh (RSPB) 2-2 (on count back).
Fly: 51kg: Santosh (Goa) bt Manoj Kumar (Tri) 4-0; Suranjoy Singh ((SSCB) bt M. Krishna (Cht) RSC 2nd round.
Bantam: 54kg: Kuldeep (Har) bt V. Durga Rao (Kar) 10-5; Santosh Singh (Jha) bt M. Venkatesh (RSPB) 2-0.
Feather: 57kg: Chote Lal (SSCB) bt Diwakar Prasad (RSPB) 4-4 (on count back); Mishal Lakra (Jha) bt Akshay Kumar (Del) 5-1.
Light: 60kg: Rakesh (Mah) w\o Rahul (Del); Vikas Malik (RSPB) bt Balbir Singh (BSF) 10-4.
Lightwelter: 64kg: Pradeep Kumar (Del) bt Lakhbir (Pun) 2-0; Balwinder (Har) bt Manoj Kumar (RSPB) 3-2.
Welter: 69kg: Dilbagh Singh (RSPB) bt Bhupender Singh (Man) 9-2; Vijay (Har) bt Jagvinder (Pun) 1-0.
Middle: 75kg: Kuldeep Singh (RSPB) bt Suresh Kumar (Chd) 12-2; Kulwant Singh (SSCB) bt Jagroop (Pun) 8-0.
