Boxers Deepak Kumar Bhoria, Govind, Narender advance

For boxer Deepak Kumar Bhoria, stepping into the shoes of 2019 World Championships silver medallist Amit Panghal for the ongoing Worlds in Tashkent is nothing short of “a career-changing moment”.


Deepak was preferred over Amit in the 51kg weight category after Bernard Dunne, the High Performance Director of Indian boxing, replaced the tradition of selection trials for big-ticket tournaments with an evaluation process at the national camp.

An evaluation was done over three weeks in March, supervised by Dunne and men’s boxing head coach CA Kuttappa, and scores were given on different bench -marks.

At the end of the evaluation, the members of the men’s boxing set-up found Deepak to have scored more points than Amit.

Nearly 50 points more. It meant Deepak would repre -sent India at the World Champion -ships in the 51kg category – a weight division Amit has owned for the last five years.

To his credit, Deepak has got the prized scalp of former Olympic and World champion Shakhobidin Zoirov of Uzbekistan in his kitty.

A win he registered at the 72nd Strandja Memorial Tournament in Sofia, Bulgaria in 2021. Also some -one Amit hasn’t ever managed to get past in his career till date.

On Thursday, Deepak gave a good account of himself in the opening round of the 51kg category against Luis Delgado of Equador in Tashkent, winning 5-0 by a unanimous decision.

Deepak will now take on the Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist and reigning world champion Saken Bibossinov of Kazakhstan in the pre-quarterfinals.

Other Indians in action on the day were Narender Berwal (+92kg) and (48kg).

Having reached the quarters in the previous World Championships, Narender began his quest for a medal at the ongoing edition by defeating Muhammad Abroridinov of Tajikistan 4-1.

The Indian will next face 2021 World Youth Championships bronze med -allist Fernando Arzola of Cuba in the pre-quarters.