Packing A Punch

A L Lakra booking his Beijing Olympics berth and 16-year-old Vipin Kumarbecoming the first Indian to bag the best boxer award in a World Championshipwere the highlights of a fantastic year for the country's pugilists at theinternational stage.

The graph remained on the up throughout 2007 except for the year-ending WorldChampionships in Chicago, where the Indians failed to clinch any medal and onlyLakra (57kg) managed to qualify for Beijing with a quarterfinal appearance.

But the eight-member team's 21st place finish in a draw of more than 100countries was a commendable achievement considering the fact that even sendingthem for the event was doubtful at one stage as the Indian Amateur BoxingFederation (IABF) struggled to get its dues cleared from the Sports Ministry.

The year also unveiled young talents like Vipin (50kg), who holds promise forthe future.

The 16-year-old from an Uttaranchal hamlet shot into prominence after he wasnamed 'Best Boxer' of the sixth World Cadet Championship held in Baku,Azerbaijan in August-September.

The last time an Indian achieved such honour was in 1962 Tokyo Asian Games whenPadam Bahadur Mall won the title.

Apart from Vipin, Vikas Yadav (48kg) was the other gold medallist in the event,while Umesh Yadav (46kg) settled for the silver. The performance was India'sbest-ever at the prestigious junior event, tallying highest points per boxerabove traditional powerhouses like Cuba and Azerbaijan.

"It has been a good year and Vipin getting the best boxer award wascertainly the highlight. In fact the juniors did really well. But we could havecertainly done better at the senior World Championships.

"A couple of more guys like Vijender (75kg) should have qualified forBeijing but that doesn't take away the fact that our boxers got lot ofinternational appreciation," IABF Secretary General Col P K M Raja said ashe looked back at the year gone by.

Vijender, the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games silver medallist and Doha AsianGames Bronze medallist, did have a couple of silver medals in two majorinternational tournaments

The 29th King's Cup in Bangkok and the 24th Asian Championships in Mongolia toshow but the gold medal continued to elude him.

The 22-year-old national champion, however, found some consolation when he wasconferred the prestigious Arjuna award this year.

"Largely satisfactory year as I became an Asian championship medallist andalso retained my national title but not qualifying for Olympics in worldchampionships was a sour point for me. But I will make amends by qualifyingthrough the Asian qualifiers next year," the Haryana-boxer said, assessinghis performance.

India's performance in the Asian Championships was indeed praiseworthy as apartfrom Vijender's silver the team also returned with six bronze medals to be tiedfor the top spot on points along with Uzbekistan in the 20-team event held inJune.