Pugilists change gear for Doha, Beijing

Patiala, July 23 (UNI) After their brilliant performance in the Melbourne Commonwealth Games, Indian pugilists have set their eyes on the Doha Asian games later this year and the 2008 Beijing Olympics and are undergoing strenuous training at Netaji Subhas National Institute of Sports here.

The Indian boxing contingent won a gold medal through Akhil Kumar, two silver medals through Harpreet and Vijendra and two bronze medals through V Johnson and Jitender at the Commonwealth Games in March this year.

Gearing up for bigger challenges ahead, eight Indian boxers -- Jitender, Akhil, Vijendra, Parvinder, Harpreet, Manoj, V Johnson and A Lakra -- were in Uzbekistan from July 1 to 15 for combined training.

Talking to UNI, India's Cuban boxing coach B I Fernandez appeared satisfied on wards' preparation for the 2008 Summer Games.

''The combined training in Uzbekistan helped us a lot since Uzbekistan is a top nation in the world in boxing,'' he said and added that the Indians had a realistic chance of bagging a medal in Beijing.

Fernandez also revealed that prior to Uzbekistan tour, 44 Indian boxers were in training at Shillaroo in Himachal Pradesh from June 6 to 28.

''The high altitude training in Shillaroo helped us considerably to improve the physiological and physical capacities of the boxers, besides increase in load and adaptation,'' he said.

Presently 25 boxers are training in the national camp at the NIS, and 18 more boxers would be joining the national camp on August 1 when the Army Boxing Championship concludes.

Fernandez is assisted by the national boxing coach M Venu, Shiv Singh, Ajmer Singh, Rajkumar, J Bisht, Dhansanjayan and Narender Rana in the training camp.

The Indian boxers will compete in the SAF Games in Colombo to be held from August 15 to 25 but, as the coach puts it, the acid test for them will be in Doha where they face a stiff opposition from boxers from Khazakistan, Uzbekistan, China, Korea, Iran and Thailand.

UNI XC DH KN1008