sameerph wrote: ↑Tue Mar 10, 2020 12:50 pm
Rest of our 5 semi finals will be in the evening session.
We could only get 1 win out 5 SF in evening session- Simranjeet Kaur in womens lightweight.
So, overall i would consider on mens side - Amit , Vikas and Gaurav Solanki as medal prospects. Amit did not have a great tournament here but he will mostly be the only Indian to be seeded in top 4. So, if he fights like he did at WC, he has a chance. Vikas has been very good here coming back from pros and he has the experience of 2 olympiad behind him. Gaurav Solanki has not even qualified here but had a bad draw against top ranked boxer from Uzbekistan. He lost in a close split decision which i thought could have gone either way. The Uzbek boxer has gone out to beat everyone else easily.
On women's side, Simranjeet, Marykom and Lovelina are prospects.
So, as Jay said we can look at 2 medals which can come down to 1 ( will be disappointed with 0 ). We need a lot of luck in draw and decisions to get 3.
Manish Kaushik qualfies as fight best boxer in his category by winning the play off against an Australian whom he had lost to in CWG final.
So, that it for here. We get a total of 9 quotas ( 5 men and 4 women). It will be our highest ever respresentation in boxing in olympics.
4 more possible places left - 3 in men and 1 in women. I think we should get 1 each in men and women in world qualifing competition. Anything more will be bounus.
Vikas had suffered a minor cut near the eyebrow in the SF which he won. I think he withdrew from the final due to that. It was clear after the SF that he will withdraw from the final as nothing much was at stake. Even if he had won the final, he would have not have got into top 4 seedings at Tokyo.
So, looks like Amit Panghal will be the only Indian seeded for Tokyo which will mean a relatively easier draw.
IOC decided to scap the final olympic qualifier for boxing for Tokyo Olympics which were to be held in June. Instead of that the quotas which were to be given at that event will go to the highest ranked boxer in each region. That has hit us bad as we cannot get any more quotas for boxing now.
Biggest miss would be Gaurav Solanki in mens 57 kgs. He lost in a split decision against eventual gold medalist and world champion from Uzbekistan in the Asian qualfier last year but unfortunately he is not the highest ranked Asian not qualfied so he missed out. Could be an outside medal hope gone for us.
India topped the medals table at the AIBA Youth World Boxing Championships with 8 Golds and 3 Bronze medals. Girls bagged 7 Gold and in Boys it was Sachin in bantam weight who got Gold. Ankit Narwal and Bishwamitra Chongtham who got Bronze and lost to eventual Gold medalist also looked promising.
Governor's Cup tournament
Olympic bound boxers had a disappointing outing at Governor's Cup tournament in Russia. Only Amit Panghal managed to get a Bronze and lost to Olympic Gold medalist and reigning World Champion Shakhobidin Zoirov of Uzbekistan. This was his second loss to Zoirov. Though he lost 5-0, the match was closely contested. Amit managed to win the last round 3-2 but Zoirov won the first two rounds. Interestingly, India's Deepak Kumar had managed to defeat Zoirov in the Strandja Memorial Tournament in Bulgaria earlier this year.
Amit Panghal almost beat the reiging olympic champion and should won if the judging had been fair. He remains our best hope for a medal at Tokyo. Probably time to upgrade him in our hopes for a medal.
But, our medal hopes, Vikas Krishan, Marykom and other women boxers were below par.
What is sad is that 2 of our best boxers in this event, Shiva Thapa and Sanjeet, cannot even qualify into Tokyo Olympics any more. And that seems to be because of BFIs bad selection policies. In Thapa's case, they sent Manish Kaushik instead to the qualifiers because Kaushik luckily got a medal in the World Championships (because he was in a really easy quarter of the draw). And in Sanjeet's case, I don't know why they send Naman Tanwar instead when Sanjeet was clearly the better boxer.
But the upshot of all of this is that we have only 3 boxers with any chance at Tokyo: Amit (40-50%), Vikas Krishnan (~20%) and Pooja Rani (~20%). So I think overall it would be fair to expect 1 medal in boxing.
Is that 20% probability too high for Pooja Rani and maybe for Vikas too. Perhaps, I will put overall 25-30% probability on a medal in womens boxing and about 70-75% probability for a medal in mens boxing ( because of Vikas). I maybe wrong as I have not fully studied the field of qualified boxers. If anyone else has, he can put a more accurate estimate.
Vikas had defeated World Championship bronze medallist from KAZ in the Olympic qualifying competition; so he clearly has a good shot at a medal, likely more than 20% (more at par with Amit). However the factor that goes against him is that he tends to get injured a lot. In the Olympic qualifiers, he had to withdraw from the Finals due to injury and again in the Asian championships, he got injured after the 1st round, and the injury re-flared in the SF, bringing an end to his campaign. I suspect that he is adopting a very risky approach (not keeping his defense up) in his bouts. That approach might have worked in the pro arena, however in the amateur arena, where there are back-to-back bouts, an injury in previous round may mean a premature end to your campaign. If he is able to keep injury free, I would rate his chances of a medal very high.
However I do agree that I might have rated Pooja Rani a little too high, based on her good performance in a weak field. But if she gets a good draw, she definitely has a good chance since it's only a 16 boxer field. She only has to win 2 bouts to get a medal.
Vikas used to be a defensive boxer fleeing from the other boxer with some skill and blocking doggedly. Now he has become an offensive boxer? He tried to change his style for the Olympics and maybe that is why he got hurt Hope he figures out a winning strategy. Here is an article on his style change: Need to impress judges ...
In the mens world boxing championships currently on in Belgrade,Serbia 5 Indian boxers have made it to the QF- Akash (54 kg), Shiva Thapa ( 63.5 kg), Nishant Dev ( 71 kg), Sanjeet ( 92 kg) and Nerender Berwal (+92 kg). This is mostly a young team ( except Shiva Thapa) with nobody from Tokyo olympics team being here. So, it is a good performance.
All of them 1 win away from medal- All QF's to be fought today. Hope we get a couple of medals.
Akash Kumar secures 1st medal for the team in the Men's World Championship ... He won the quarter-final bout convincingly against Rio Olympics silver medalist Venezuelan Yoel Finol 5-0 in 54 kg category.
Akash Kumar lost his SF and won bronze at world boxing championships. He was the only Indian to win a medal as 4 other Indians lost in the QF. So, average performance I would say.
