Shiva Thapa crashes out of World Championships, three others progress

Narender Berwal (+92kg), and Govind Sahani (48kg) advanced to the pre-quarterfinals while promising pugilist Deepak Kumar (51kg), who is competing in Amit Panghal’s weight class, also progressed to the Round of 32.

Shiva, who was seeded second, did well to recover from his sluggish start that cost him the first round 1-4.

The Army man was proactive in the second and third round, landing lusty blows. He jabbed and used his hooks and upper cuts to take the second round with a 3-2 margin.

He looked on course for a win but faltered in the final two minutes that probably cost him the bout as he failed to get the majority vote in the review.

With a quarterfinal finish at the previous World Championships under his belt, Narender began his quest for a medal by defeating Muhammad Abroridinov of Tajikistan 4-1.

Both pugilists, who won bronze at the 2022 Asian Championships, went all out from the beginning in the neck-and-neck bout. Narender landed powerful punches and dodged his opponent’s attacks from close range to have the upper hand in the first round.

The Hisar-born pugilist continued to attack on the front foot in the next two rounds and won the bout. He will face the 2021 World Youth Championships bronze medallist Fernando Arzola of Cuba in the quarter-finals.

Earlier in the day, 2022 Thailand Open champion Govind (48kg) and 2019 Asian silver medallist Deepak (51kg) kicked off their respective campaigns with identical victories.

Govind, who has had an outstanding year so far with a gold at the National Championships and a silver at the 74th Strandja Memorial, continued his rich vein of form as he made light work of Mehron Shafiev of Tajikistan to secure a 5-0 win.

Deepak, on the other hand, was also at his attacking best as he ousted Luis Delgado of Ecuador with his supreme technical ability to seal an emphatic victory by a unanimous decision.

Govind will next face the top-seeded Sakhil Alakhverdovi of Georgia who won bronze at the last World Championships while Deepak will take on the Tokyo Olympics bronze winner and reigning world champion Saken Bibossinov of Kazakhstan.

On Friday, two-time Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Mohammad Hussamuddin, Tokyo Olympian Ashish Chaudhary and Naveen Kumar will all be in pre-quarterfinals action.

Hussamuddin (57kg) will go head to head against Lyu Ping of China while Ashish (80kg) will face a tough challenge against two-time Olympic gold medallist Arlen Lopez of Cuba. Naveen (92kg) will take on Jeong Jae-min of South Korea.