Pune: Services’ one-upmanship came to the fore as eight of their boxers entered the final of the third Elite Men Boxing National Championships at the ASI rings in Pune on Thursday. In comparison, only seven of the Railways pugilists made the finals cut but, in the process, they suffered an unexpected loss in the form of Naman Tanwar, the CWG bronze medal winner, in the heavy weight category.
This, in effect, titled the balance in favour of SSCB as Sanjeet was the one who accounted for Naman in the 91 kg class, what turned out to be a fantastic bout which the Services boxer won through a split verdict of 3:2.
The other Services boxers who made it to the finals included Deepak (46 kg), P.L. Prasad (53), Madan Lal (56), Manish Kaushik (60), Duryodhan Singh Negi (69), Manjeet Singh (75) and Satish Kumar (+91).
Earlier, Railways’ Sachin Siwach was packed off by none other than P.L. Prasahd, who is known for upsetting big names. Prasad had upset Amit Panghal, the Jakarta Asian Games gold medal winner at the All India Services Championship, a year ago. Keeping his giant-killer reputation intact, Prasad defeated Sachin in the fly (52 kg) category, winning the semifinal 5:0.
Other Railways boxers who sailed into the finals included Gaurav Bidhuri (56-kg), Ankush Dahiya (60-kg), Dinesh (69-kg), Prayag Chauhan (75-kg), Manish Panwar (81-kg) and Jasveer Sngh (+91kg), winning on points.
There are at least five interesting finals on cards in which the Services and Railways boxers will clash with each other on Friday.