Hitesh Gulia became the only boxer from India’s 10-tim contingent to make the final of the World Boxing Cup 2025 on Friday, when he unanimously defeated France’s Maken Train through a decision, even though the bout was not easy as the score was suggested.
Gulia, one of the young boxers emerging from the national landscape in India at the age of 19, is considered an upcoming possibility in a category with the Paris Olympian Nishant Dev.
One of the initial issues that the world boxing is doing is the level of competition. Because the world bodies are still in the process of assuring ships to jump and join their organization, these competitions are some of the top boxers in the world.
Domestic also, Indian boxing has been made useless due to infiltration into the Federation due to the upcoming elections. This is the reason that there was a delay in the citizens of women, which meant that a women’s team could not be sent to Brazil to participate in this tournament.
National Champion in 70 kg weight category and an Inspire Institute of Sport Trainee, Hitesh defeated the Paris Olympian trailer in Brazil, but may be lucky to score the bout.
In the first round, as happened to the Haryana boxer through this tournament, he gave the center of the ring to his opponent and chose to operate from outside. Against Italy’s Gabriel Guidi Ronetin, the strategy worked perfectly with the Indian boxer when he is coming in, but is sufficiently attacked whenever he is in the range.
However, against trar, opposition levels increased, and demonstrations drowned. Trar played a smart first round, dominated the center, but it was also not loose. This meant that the Onas was on the small Indian boxer to cover the ground, and whenever he tried, the French pagilist was designed to take off his hook and move away from the way.
Hitesh achieved fleeting success with shots to the body, but when he entered the border, it seemed that the French boxer hit a clear punch. But the judges felt otherwise and gave the 19-year round 4–1.
In the second round, a uniform topic was followed and even though the Trayer raised the ante and lowered the important shots, the judges felt that Hitesh’s work is going on with the second round as well as the Indian 4–1 along with the second round. At this point, on the scorecard of the judges, the score for Hitesh from three judges was 20–18 and the other two to 19–19.
The last round was still Indian best. Encouraged by judges, Hitesh offered clean shots and was aggressive in bouts for the first time. This did not help know that he was trying to achieve a result of his energy in the second round and was tired, and later it was dirty in maintaining the same range that was helping him to take off his shots in the first two rounds. But once again, the judges sent a surprising score, giving the French boxer three out of five rounds. In the end, the score read 28–28 from four judges and 29–27 from one Australian evaluation. Four judges had given a tie score to the competition, all decided that Hitesh was a better boxer.
He now faces Odel Kamara of England in the final. On that day other Indian boxers were reduced to their goal of reaching the finals. Jadumani Singh Mandengbam lost 2–3 in semi-finals in the 50 kg semi-finals to Uzbek Asylback Jalilov in the semi-finals, while Sachin Siwach, who got out of the Paris Olympic quota spot, lost to Pavel Brack in 60 kg bouts. In the 90 kg semi -final, he hugely lost to Turbhek Khabibullav in Uzbekistan.
© IE Online Media Services Private Limited
