Boxers who competed in Tokyo Olympics unlikely to be part of National Boxing Championship
(Vikas Krishan played with a shoulder injury in Tokyo.
|(PTI)
The BFI is supposed to conduct the nationals in September but the boxers who competed in the Tokyo Olympics won't be a part of the tournament for various reasons. The gold medal winners in the nationals will get an entry to the World Championships supposed to be held in Serbia later this year.
Soon after the dates of the national men's boxing championship were announced, it has emerged that the five pugilists who competed at the Tokyo Olympics won't be taking part here, which eventually rules them out of contention for World Championships as well. Amit Panghal (52kg), Manish Kaushik (63kg), Vikas Krishan (69kg), Ashish Chaudhary (75kg) and Satish Kumar (+91kg) had a horrendous outing at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Out of the five boxers, Vikas, Satish and Ashish are nursing injuries while Amit and Manish are set to skip the tournament due to lack of practice time.
“They have opted out of the Nationals because they haven’t been able to train well since coming back from Tokyo. One or two might still consider it closer to the tournament but in all likelihood, they wouldn’t compete," a source close to the boxers told PTI.
Also, Vikas underwent a shoulder surgery recently, which would keep him out of the ring till November.
On the other hand Satish said, “There was severe swelling because of that infection and I have only recently started recovering from it. I have started light training but it wouldn’t be enough for the Nationals."
The source further added, “The boxers would have preferred the Nationals to be held after the world championships. There could simply have been trials for the worlds. So many boxers feel that they are struggling to be in their preferred weight because of lack of training and the little time in hand," he said.
“Only Haryana, I think, has managed to conduct state championships, rest are doing trials to pick teams for the Nationals," he added.
