Shiva, Bhaskar, Vikas enter quarterfinals

Indian boxers continued their impressive run at the World youth championships with the trio of Asian champion Vikas Krishan, J. Bhaskar and Shiva Thapa advancing to the quarterfinals with thumping wins in their respective categories in Baku, Azerbaijan on Thursday.

The first Indian to take the ring on Thursday, Bhaskar thrashed Algeria's Reda Benbaziz 13-5 in the flyweight 51kg category. Shiva blanked Sweden's Raz Rejen Abdulrahman 11-0 in the bantamweight 54kg.

Later, Vikas beat Lativia's Eduards Gutmans 8-3 in the lightweight 60kg to be just one win away from qualifying for the Youth Olympic Games.

Bhaskar will be up against Shaban Ahahpalangov on Friday after the local favourite defeated China's Jiang Jinyong 6-2.

Shiva, meanwhile, has a tough bout in hand as he will take on Russian Vadim Semim, who beat Czech Republic's Patrik Velky 12-6 in his pre-quarterfinals bout. Vikas will face Ireland's Michael O'Reilly, who got the better of Welshman Mitchell Buckland 12-6.

Stiff resistance

Bhaskar faced some resistance to start with but still managed to end the first round 4-2 ahead. From the second round onwards, the Indian dominated the proceedings and added six points to make it 8-2. The final round followed a similar script and though Benbaziz managed to open his account, it hardly made a difference as Bhaskar pocketed four points in the last minute.

Shiva gave an even more dominating performance as he didn't allow his rival to strike even a single scoring blow. With nine points in his kitty by the end of round two, Shiva had the bout firmly in his grasp and he only widened the margin by picking up three more points in the final round.

An ecstatic coach G. Manoharan said, “It's a tournament featuring over 450 boxers from 90 countries. My boys have done well and hopefully they would win medals here.”