Patiala: World Cup medalists Amit Panghal and Shiva Thapa claimed berths on the Indian boxing team for the upcoming Commonwealth Games after taking victory in the trials, which were held here on Thursday.
While Panghal, the silver medalist of the 2019 World Championship, secured his place in the 51kg division, Thapa took the 63.5kg spot in the trials held at the Netaji Subhas National Institute of Sports.
The other six boxers who have made their way to the Indian team include 2018 bronze medalist Mohammad Hussamuddin (57kg), Rohit Tokas (67kg), reigning National Champion Sumit (75kg), Ashish Kumar (80kg) ), Sanjeet (92kg) and Sagar (92kg+). †
The CWG will take place from July 28 to August 8 in Birmingham.
Panghal defeated fellow Services boxer Deepak 4-1 by split decision. He will aim to improve on his performance from the previous edition in Gold Coast, where he won a silver medal.
In contrast, 2015 World Championship bronze medalist Thapa, who was elected to the IBA Athletes Committee last week, defeated Manish Kaushik 5-0 for the 2018 CWG silver medal to seal his spot at the quadrennial event.
In the 57kg category, Hussamuddin of 2019 Asian Championship silver medalist Kavinder Singh Bisht triumphed 4-1, while Railways Rohit took a narrow 3-2 victory over UP’s Aditya Pratap Yadav in the welterweight division.
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Sumit, Ashish, Sanjeet and Sagar all dominated their fights, winning by an identical 5-0 margin.
India finished second in the 2018 edition of the Games and returned with nine medals, including three gold and an equal number of silver and bronze.
The women’s trials for the Games will be held next week.
Men’s team:
Amit Panghal (51 kg), Mohammad Hussamuddin (57 kg), Shiva Thapa (63.5 kg) Rohit Tokas (67 kg), Reigning National Champion Sumit (75 kg), Ashish Kumar (80 kg), Sanjeet (92 kg) and Sagar (92 kg+).
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