Ten Indian boxers qualify for Commonwealth Games

Ten Indian boxers qualify for Commonwealth Games
The trials for the selection of the Indian boxers for the Commonwealth Games 2010 and Asian Games Guangzhou 2010 were held in Patiala and the results were announced today.

There were 44 Indian boxers who participated in the trials and there were international referees and judges along with the seven member selection committee & jury who selected those who would go on to represent the country at CWG 2010 and Asian Games 2010.

Some of India’s best boxers like Vijender Singh (who won a silver medal for India at the previous Olympics), Akhil Kumar, Suranjoy Singh and Dinesh Kumar were all present, along with some of the younger ones in the lot.

German coach Mirko Wolf was also present at the event. He is a part of the Indian team for the World Series of Boxing and he was there to oversee the way in which the Indian pugilists fought. He praised the training facilities at NS NIS Patiala and indicated that it was one of the best in the world. What would have heartened the Indian fans was that he said that India had more than just one boxer in each of the categories, unlike some of the other countries which had only one or two.

Apart from Wolf, the adjudicators included Jaslal Pradhan, Padam Bahadur Mall, Mehtab Singh, Jaipal Singh, BI Fernandez, GS Sandhu and Col PK Muralidharan Raja.

The trials were also held for all the categories where each boxer was given a fair chance. The boxers had to fight against each other in their categories in bouts which had three rounds of three minutes each. There was manual scoring and computerised scoring to back that up and there was also a provision to use replays in order to avoid any kind of controversy or doubt.

Ten Indian boxers qualified for the Commonwealth Games of 2010 in various categories. These include Amandeep Singh for the 49 kg category, Suranjoy Roy for the 52 kg category, Akhil Kumar in the 56 kg class, Jai Bhagwan Singh (60 kg), Manoj Kumar (64 kg), Dilbagh Singh (69 kg), Vijender Singh (75 kg), Dinesh Kumar (81 kg), Manpreet Singh (91 kg) and Paramjit Samota (91+ kg).

These ten boxers will continue their training in Patiala till September 15 before moving to Delhi where the games will be held.

India had won one gold, two silver and two bronze medals in the previous Commonwealth Games in boxing. The previous games were held in Melbourne in 2006.