India’s Deepak Bhoria, Narender Berwal and Jaismine Lamboria crashed out in the opening round at the first World Boxing Qualification Tournament for the Paris 2024 Olympics in Busto ArsizioItaly on Sunday.
Deepak Bhoria, bronze medallist from the 2023 World Championships, suffered a shock exit after a 3-2 split decision loss against Azerbaijani boxer Nijat Huseynov, a two-time under-22 European champion.
The first two rounds saw a tight contest as both boxers went on the offensive from the get-go. However, it was the young pugilist from Azerbaijan who made the most of his swiftness and edged Deepak by identical 3-2 scorelines in both rounds.
The Indian boxer came out all guns blazing in the final round and delivered some quality blows. He won the round 4-1 but it wasn’t enough as Nijat won the bout.
Narender Berwal went down to Germany’s Nelvie Tiafack, the 2022 European champion, by a 5-0 unanimous decision
Nelvie dominated the first round to clinch it 4-1. Narender tried to cover lost ground in the next round but the German edged past with a 3-2 win. The Indians went all out in the third round but a solid defense from Nelvie saw the Germans take the match.
Later in the day, Commonwealth Games 2022 bronze medallist Jaismine Lamboria bowed out of the women’s 60kg after a 5-0 loss against Japan’s Ayaka Taguchi.
Lakshya Chahar will start his campaign in the men’s 80kg round of 64 against Iran’s Gheshlaghi Meysam on Monday.
On Tuesday, six-time Asian Championships medallist Shiva Thapa will face reigning world champion Ruslan Abdullaev of Uzbekistan in the opening round of the men’s 63.5kg category while World Championships bronze medallist Nishant Dev will go up against Lewis Richardson of Great Britain in the 71kg division .
Former youth world champion Ankushita Boro (66kg) will face Sonvico Emilie of France while national champion Sanjeet Kumar (92kg) will square off against Aibek Oralbay of Kazakhstan on Wednesday.
World Championships bronze medallist Mohammed Hussamuddin (57kg) received a bye in his first round and will be in action on Friday in the round of 32.
India sent a total of nine boxers to the world Olympic boxing qualifiers.