Young Nishant Dev stunned Strandja memorial bronze medallist Naveen Boora to enter the semifinals and assure himself of a first podium finish in the National boxing championships at the Inspire Institute of Sports (IIS) here on Sunday.
The 20-year-old Nishant, an IIS trainee hailing from Haryana and representing Karnataka, used his experience of sparring with National champion Naveen at the camp to record a 5-0 victory in the 71kg quarterfinal.
Nishant, a southpaw, initiated attacks early and kept the hard-punching Services rival quiet.
“The time spent at the camp made me fight fearlessly. Even though I had body soreness due to the previous bout (against Railways’ Ashish Kulheria), I was able to do well,” said Nishant.
Promising Services boxer Sumit produced a power-packed performance to get the better of the experienced Ankit Khatana of Haryana 5-0 in a 75kg quarterfinal contest.
The seasoned Shiva Thapa smartly handled the challenge posed by World youth bronze medallist Ankit Narwal of Railways.
Thapa banked on his defensive skills and clean punches to beat Narwal 4-1 in a 63.5kg last-eight bout.
Other important results (quarterfinals):
48kg: Barun Singh (SSCB) bt Neeraj Swami (Del) 5-0, Govind Sahani (RSPB) bt Shiv Kant (Pun) 4-1.
51kg: Deepak Kumar (SSCB) bt Sparsh Kumar (Pun) 5-0, Ankit (Har) bt Ashish Insha (RSPB) 3-2.
54kg: Sachin Siwach (RSPB) bt Roshan Zameer (Goa) 5-0; 57kg: Mohd. Hussamuddin bt Rushikesh Goud (Mah) KO-R3.
60kg: Varinder Singh (RSPB) bt Inderjit Singh (DDNH) 5-0; 63.5kg: Abhinash Jamwal (HP) bt Hitesh Singh (DDNH) 4-1.
67kg: Amit Sheoran (Raj) bt Aman (Chd) 3-2; 71kg: Amit Kumar (DDNH) bt Nagesh Kharare (Mah) 5-0.
75kg: Buntee Singh (Del) Pushpender Rathee (Goa) 4-1; 80kg: Sachin Kumar (SSCB) bt Uday Singh (Kar) 4-1.
86kg: Gowtham Palani (TN) bt Vishal Bataan (Kar) RSC-R1, Sumit Sangwan (Har) bt Avinash Singh (MP) RSC-R3.
92kg: Sanjeet (SSCB) bt Sandeep Sharma (RSPB) ABD-R2; 92+kg: Narender (SSCB) bt Tarun Sharma (Raj) 5-0.
