Services dominate summit clashes with 8 gold medals

PUNE: Manish Kaushik, the CWG silver medal winner and defending national champion in light welter class (64 kg), claimed his consecutive gold even as World Championships bronze medallist Gaurav Bidhuri, whom the Services boxer Madan Lal defeated in 56 kg, had to settle for the silver in the bantam class as the third Elite Men Boxing National Championships concluded at the AIS rings in Pune on Friday.

The domination of the Services boxers was, more or less, complete with as many as eight of their pugilists accounting for the 10 gold medals on offer on the final day.

Railways, which had to satisfy with just two gold medals, were behind the leaders with two silver and two bronze medals as well. Punjab, with one silver and bronze each, Maharashtra with one silver and two bronze medals, Haryana (1 silver and 2 bronze) and Rajasthan one silver medal to their account, followed them.

Strangely, the boxing powerhouse Haryana was placed fifth on the points chart after Maharashtra while other bronze medal winners included, Tamil Nadu (2), Himachal Pradesh (2) while Uttar Pradesh, All India Police, Delhi, Chandigarh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Nagaland managed one each.

Deepak, who started the gold-glut for Services, defeated Punjab’s Himanshu Shara 5:0 in light fly as PL Prasad accounted for Ananta Chopade of Maharashtra in a split verdict (3:2) for the gold in bantam class.

The Kings Cup bronze medal winner, Rohit Tokas scorffed a 5:0 decision against his UP rival Abhishek Yadav in light welter class (64 kg) But the SSCB began from where Prasad had left it off as Durdhyan Singh Negi downed Dinesh of Raiwlays 5:0 in 69 kg, Manjeet Singh ousted Prayag Chauhan, also of Raiwlays, 4:1 in middle weight (75 kg).

Railways though managed yet another gold medal with Manish Panwar beating Rajasthan’s Brijesh Yadav 4:1 in 81 kg (light heavy) class for their second gold at the nationals.

But with Sanjeet beating Haryana in heavy weight (91) and Satish Kumar defeating Jasveer of Railways in super heavy class, the Services completed the task with all their finalists winning the yellow metal to stamp their authority in the nationals.