Internet Desk: Indian boxers are in a poor show at the Olympic qualifier boxing tournament ongoing at Vargas in Venezuela. Two of the three boxers have already made an exit, while hope is still on with Neeraj Goyat.
Before the start of APB/WSB Qualification Event at Vargas Indian boxing lovers were in enormous hope on qualification of three more boxers for Rio Olympics. The qualification tournament started on Sunday. The three boxers Neeraj Goyat, Gaurav Bidhuri and Dilbag Singh had their matches on Monday. It was a mixed result for Indian boxers yesterday.
There was high expectation on World Boxing Championship title holder Neeraj Goyat. He won his quarterfinal match against Dimitrios Poulikos Tsagkrakos. However, the win was not easy as the Greek gave him a tough fight. Neeraj won the three sets by 28-29 28-29 27-30. In every set there were ups and downs for both the players. In the semi-final Neeraj has to face Arajik Marutjan of Germeny.
According to rules three from the 69 kg Mens’ Welter weight category will get a qualification for the Rio Olympics. In the semi-final if wins he will surely get that qualification. However, if he loses he has to face another qualification round against the other loser of the other semi-final.
Apart from the news of Neeraj there is no good news for India from Vargas. In the 52kg Gaurav Bidhuri and in 81 kg Dilbag Singh were defeated. Gaurav lost to Maksym Fatch of Ukrain in a tough game. He lost three sets by 29-28 29-28 30-27. On the other hand loss of Dilbag was also unfortunate. He won the first set against Patru Ciobanu of Maldova, but lost the trailing two sets.
After the loss of Dilbag and Gaurav the hope is lying only on Neeraj. He will face his next match on Thursday. This year India has a very poor team to send to Rio Olympic. London Olympic had eight boxers to compete for India. This time only three boxers could qualify for Rio. The hope was on the APB/WSB Qualification tournament at Vargas. A poor show by two Indian boxers of India further shrunk the tally of India to Rio Olympics.