The Hindu : Sport / Boxing : Santosh wins by a whisker

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Oct 15, 2006
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Sport

Sport - Boxing

Santosh wins by a whisker

D. Ravi Shankar

Calangute (Goa): India's and Goa's Santosh Harijan fought the match of his life to score the narrowest of victories in the flyweight class of the 2nd Asian junior boxing championship here on Saturday.

The Goan boxer won by one point collected in the last second of the fourth round to enter the final, beating Tokueuev of Kazakhstan. Santosh started off well to go ahead on points on the first round, leading 4-2. But the Kazakhstan boxer showed tremendous spirit to keep up and pull ahead in the second round at 10-8. Tokuauev landed his right crosses and straight jabs with perfection to gain a three-point lead in the second round.

Santosh, urged on by his coach Manoharan and a partisan crowd, traded punch for punch in the third but Tokuauev maintained his aggression and held on to the three-point lead at the end of the third round.

Nail-biting round

The final round was nail-biting as both boxers went for broke. Santosh managed to bridge the three-point lead and draw level at 19-19 and from then on both boxers stayed level till 21-21. With just a fraction of a second to go for the end of the bout Santosh landed a right cross to the Kazakh's cheek to clinch the bout and enter the final.

The results: (all semifinals):

Light fly: Sau Wengmeng (Mcu) lost to Kaby Lehanev (Kaz) RSC (second round); Jaya Raman (Mas) lost to Paramjeet (Ind) 14-20.

Fly: Tokuauev (Kaz) lost to H. Santosh (Ind) 21-22; M.K.A. Sanjeeva (SL) lost to Akabari (Irn) RSC (second round).

Bantam: S. Santosh (Ind) bt N. Ueba Yashi (Jpn) RSC/OS (third round); D.R. Vijeratne (SL) lost to Bashenov (Kaz) RSC (5-20).

Feather: Heelbathdeniya (SL) lost to A. Bat O Chir (Mgl) 8-30; Chottelal (Ind) bt Ilyasov (Kaz) RSC (third round) 28-8.

Light: L Shinetulga (Mgl) lost to Yegizekovs (Kaz) RSC (second round); M.D. Ridhwan (Sin) lost to Sagynbave (Krg) RSC (second round).

Light welter: M.D. Farkhan (Mas) lost to Noba Singh (Ind) 13-28; Maowenhao (Tpe) lost to Koznabekovs (Kaz) RSC (second round).

Welter: Sattar Poor (Irn) bt N. Shine Bayar (Mgl) RSC/OS (third round); Suresh Kumar (Ind) lost to Serikov (Kaz) RSC (third round).

Middle: Parminder (Ind) lost to Usmanov (Krg) RSC (third round).

M Krnitsyn (Kaz) lost to Karkardi (Irn) 10-17

Light heavy: E.R. Bahany (Irn) bt Dinesh Kumar (Ind) 37-28..

Superheavy: Sonam Tshering (Bhu) lost to Baljit Singh (Ind) 2-22.