Patiala: PL Prasad continued his winning streak in the light fly weight division as he outclassed Amit Kumar Srivastava of Meghalaya 10:3 in the 45th Junior Men National Boxing Championship in Patiala on Sunday.
The 16-year-old, who has been bagging the gold medal at the sub-junior and junior nationals for the last four years, advanced to the next round with another riveting performance. The SSCB boxer beat Amit Kumar on points to make a place in the quarter-finals of the championship. In the round of eight he will lock horns with Amit Panghal of Haryana.
Panghal, the pin weight silver medallist from last year, trounced Ashish Sharma from UP in lop sided contest (22:6) to make his place in the next round. Andhra boxers K Sagar once again had to dig deep to get past the solid defence of Delhi State Champion Pawan Singh. There was not much separating the two boxers in the first four minutes of play with the scores knotted at 4 all. But in the final round Sagar took a crucial one point lead with a nice left cross. The former sub-junior national champion and a silver medallist at the Youth National Championships last year, advanced to the quarters with a victory on points (8:7). He now takes on Kuldeep Bholane of Maharashtra who beat P Parmod of Chhattisgarh to set up the clash.
In the fly weight class, A. Silambarasan the light bantam weight silver medallist from 2011 was once again at his best, this time against Atul Chandran of Kerala. The 16-year-old needed less than two minutes to advance to the next round and get rid of the Keral Boxer (RSC OC 8:0 R1). He will battle it out with Bound Benjamin of Jharkhand in the next round for a place in the semi-finals. Benjamin defeated Bijen Singh of Manipur in the pre quarters on points 13:10.
Abhay Singh of Services scored a thumping win over Moi Rangthem Tondonba of Arunachal Pradesh. The bronze medal winner at the 2010 Junior National boxing championship did not need more than two rounds to complete the win. He was leading 9:4 when the referee stopped the contest. Singh will now fight against Ashish Gautam of UP who drubbed Delhi state champion Yogesh Tokas in his pre quarter-final bout. The day also saw an upset in the form of David Singh of Nagaland. The two time junior national champion suffered defeat at the hands of Ravindra Balhara from Orissa in what was a fight to the finish. Singh, who was down 4 points after the second round, made a stunning recovery in third and it seemed that victory would be his. But Balhara held onto the advantage and managed to scrape past the Naga boxer into the quarters.
In the light welter weight division, reigning youth national champion Deepak Tanwar of the Services team thrashed Vikas Kumar from Bihar to make his way into the round of eight. 2010 Junior National silver medallist Malkhan Singh of Haryana also scored an easy victory over Thingham Laljinglemba of Arunachl Pradesh. The two powerful boxers will take on each other in the quarters on Monday (14 May 2012).
