National boxing championship: Manoj stays on course for gold

Double Olympian Manoj Kumar of Railways stayed on course for a gold with a fluent 5-0 win over Shubham of Punjab 5-0 in their welterweight semifinal in the second Elite Men’s national boxing championship here on Sunday.

Manoj’s wonderful combination of left and right jabs had the relatively inexperienced opponent on the defensive for most of the fight.

The big surprise of the evening was when Santosh Harijan of Goa, who is a big hit with the crowds with his peculiar mannerisms and evasive technique, got the better of Sukraj Rai of Sikkim with a 5-0 margin in the bantamweight category semifinals.

In a flyweight semifinal, Railways suffered a big blow when the referee stopped the contest in the third round after its injured boxer Salman Shekh took the second count in the third round for the cut he had suffered on the left eye in the previous round, to the delight of his opponent Vinod Tanwar of Haryana.

The results (all semifinals):

Light fly: NT Lalbiakkima bt Pardeep Sharma 4-1; K. Shyam Kumar bt Vipin Kumar 5-0.

Fly: Laldinmawia bt Chandan Das 5-0; Vinod Tanwar bt Salman Shekh; RSC, injury third round.

Bantam: Madan Lal bt Varinder Singh 4-1; Santosh Harijan bt Sukraj Rai 5-0.

Light: Shiva Thapa bt Buntee Singh 5-0; Manish Kaushik bt Palwinder Singh 5-0.

Light welter: Basant Thapa bt Jimil Thomas 3-2; Dheeraj Kumar bt Ankit Khatana 5-0.

Welter: Duryodhan Singh bt Manish Uikey 5-0; Manoj Kumar bt Shubham 5-0.

Middle: Mandeep Jhangra bt Parag Chauhan 5-0; Vanhlimpuia bt Anup Chhetri 5-0.

Light heavy: Neel Kamal bt Jagat Singh Belal 4-1; Manish Panwar bt Brijesh Yadav, RSC injury.

Heavy: Varinder Kumar bt Kishan Thapa 4-1; Naman bt Sagar Chikara 5-0.

Super heavy: Parvin Kumar bt Samrat Ingle RSC, 2nd round; Abhay Partap Singh bt Satish Kumar, RSC, second round.