The Hindu : Sport / Boxing : Santosh steals the show

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Friday, Jun 05, 2009
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Sport - Boxing

Santosh steals the show

Sports Reporter

— Photo: K. Ananthan

KEEN TUSSLE: V. Santosh Kumar (right) of Services Sports Control Board in action against Ravi Kumar of Jharkhand.

Coimbatore: Tamil Nadu’s M. Shanmugam and SSCB’s V. Santosh Kumar set the night on fire with thumping wins in the bantam (54kgs) and light welter (64kgs) weight categories of the 42nd National youth boxing championship at the Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya indoor stadium on Thursday.

The 17-year-old Shanmugam, a product of the Perambur PAV Club, rocked Kerala’s D.H. Vaishak with a potent right hook soon after the opening bell.

Even before Vaishak could recover from the early jolt, Shanmugam knocked the stuffing out of his rival with a series of punches and earned a big round of applause from a rather huge crowd. The punches were so hard and strong that the young Vikash lasted a shade less than a minute in the opening round.

Shanmugam’s teammate, Veeramani, however, went down tamely to Orissa’s Bhim Kumar in the light welter weight category. Santosh defeated Ravi Kumar of Jharkand 21-7 without much ado.

The Commonwealth Youth Games gold medalist dominated the contest, giving Ravi a thorough boxing lesson.

Initially, Ravi looked a great match as he put on a good show. But, Santosh, cool as a cucumber, used his international experience to a great extent and came up with a combination of fast, well-timed and accurate punches to outbox his opponent in four rounds.

The results: Bantam (54kgs): Gurvinder Singh (Raj) bt Bikram Malik (WB) 9-7; N. Limanguba Tsubir (Nag) bt Pranit Kumbhar (Mah) (WP); Sandeep Thapa (Jha) bt Mukesh Kumar (UP) 11-10; M. Govind Rao bt Pritam Shilal (Sik) 12-1; M. Shanmugam (TN) bt D.H. Vaishak (Ker) (KO R-1).

Light welter (64kgs): Bhim Kumar (Ori) bt R. Veeramani (TN) (Retd R-2); Dev Darshan (Har) bt Ajay Kumar (MP) 11-4; Sagar Chhikara (Del) bt Hitender K. Rajput (Guj) 13-0; V. Santosh Kumar (SSCB) bt Ravi Kumar (Jha) 21-7.