Srinivas claims gold

New Delhi, march 7: Railwayâ€™s S Sriniwas Rao claimed a gold medal as India won four medals in the Grand Prix-2000 Inter...

New Delhi, march 7: Railwayâ€™s S Sriniwas Rao claimed a gold medal as India won four medals in the Grand Prix-2000 International Boxing Championship which concluded in Usti Laben (Czech Republic) on Monday.

Much was expected from the Asian Games gold medal winner Dingko Singh but he lost narrowly in quarter-final round in bantam weight category.

India was represented by seven boxers and apart from Sriniwas’ gold, other medal winners were Ramanand (silver), S Suresh Singh and Jitender Kumar (a bronze each).

Story continues below this ad

In fly weight category, Sriniwas defeated Kazakstan’s Batyra Bajevaman (9-0) in semi-final and then outboxed a Thai boxer 6-4 in the final.

In feather weight, Service’s Ramanand defeated Poland’s P Sebastian 40-34 in the semi-finals. However, Ramanand could not play in the final due to severe cut injury in his left eyebrow and had to be content with a silver medal.

CISF’s S Suresh Singh in light fly weight and Railway’s Jitender Kumar in middle weight lost their semi-final bouts on points against Romanian and Czech boxers respectively and ended with a bronze each.

Two other boxers, Services’ Gurcharan Singh in light heavy weight and K Sanjit Singh of Assam Rifle, in light welter, put up good fights before crashing out in the quarter-final rounds.

Story continues below this ad

Before taking part in the Grand Prix-2000, the Indian boxers had a 12-day training stint in Czech Republic.

Besides India and Czech Republic, other countries who took part in the championship included Cuba, Russia, Germany, Poland, Italy, Romania, Canada, Slovakia, Thailand, Philippines and Kazakstan.

The Indian boxers will now be taking part in the third Olympic qualifying tournament to be held at Bangkok from April 1-7.