The Hindu : Sport / Boxing : Indian pugilists given a warm send-off

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Thursday, Aug 05, 2004

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Sport - Boxing

Indian pugilists given a warm send-off

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 4. The boxers exuded confidence and the national coach expressed cautious optimism as three of the four Olympic qualified pugilists who have been supported for nearly two years by the Associated Cement Companies Limited (ACC) were given a warm send off for Athens by the company in a brief function here on Wednesday afternoon.

"This is my second Olympics. I am not going to be overawed by the stage, as I have the experience of competing in the Sydney Games. I hope to get my best result in Athens," said Jitender Kumar, the 26-year-old Railway employee whose rich collection of international medals includes the silver from the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur in 1998.

The 18-year-old Vijender who had won a bronze in the pre-Olympic competition in Greece said that he was equally charged up to land his best punch in the Athens Games.

"Olympics is a great opportunity for me, and I feel positive about coming up with a good fare," said Vijender, a second-year BA student from Bhiwani.

Akhil Kumar had qualified for the Olympics by bagging the silver medal in the second Olympic qualifying tournament in Guangzhou (China) and said that he felt confident of winning a medal in Athens.

Coach quite happy

National coach Gurbax Singh Sandhu praised the support of ACC for the sport, and said that the future of Indian boxing was in safe hands. He was particularly happy about the ploy of pulling out Vijender from the junior ranks and blooding him in the senior circuit which proved to be a big success.

"We are handling Vijender with the same caution that we took in shaping the career of Gurcharan Singh," said Sandhu, in highlighting the potential of Vijender. Gurcharan was agonisingly close to a medal in Sydney before he failed to get out of the way of a punch in the last few seconds of his quarterfinal bout.

"We will not dishearten you. We hope to come back and have a grand get-together'', said Sandhu.

The working president of the Indian Amateur Boxing Federation (IABF), R.S. Dalal, inspired the boxers with a vibrant speech when he projected them as handsome models, who would soon emerge as worthy role-models.

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