Mandeep, Manoj are too good

Railways Sports Promotion Board’s top stars, Manoj Kumar and Mandeep Jangra, had an easy day in the ring as they comfortably won in the Second Elite Men’s National Boxing Championship here on Thursday.

Manoj, the 2010 Commonwealth Gold medallist, won his 64kg category bout against Uttar Pradesh’s Rahul Gupta in the second round itself as the referee stopped the contest. Manoj maintained a safe distance from Rahul but still kept landing his jabs and hooks. “It was all about getting the cobwebs out in the initial round as I attacked without taking any risk,” he explained later.

He showed a glimpse of his competence in the second round as he mounted a vicious attack. A perfect combination of a right jab and a left hook saw his opponent biting the dust. The referee felt that Rahul couldn’t continue and Manoj Kumar was given a ticket to the next round.

Mandeep Jangra also had it easy, against Tamil Nadu’s R. Prakash Raj. In their middleweight category (75 kg) contest, Mandeep and Prakash Raj began on a cautious note. But Mandeep’s right hook soon began to assert itself. Raj countered with a few of his own punches to seem like an equal fight after round one. But Mandeep came into his own in the second round and inflicted maximum damage. Prakash Raj made a desperate attempt to come back in the final round but by then it was too late. Mandeep was declared a unanimous 5-0 winner.

In the 64kg category, Rohit Tokas asserted supremacy from the start and beat Vishnu of Tripura with a dominating 5-0 scoreline.