On last day

known for his brilliant counterattacks, seemed wary of the constantlyon-the-move Indian, who refused to fall into the trap of diving in. The result was a frustrated Dusmatov being forced to lunge forward which worked perfectly well for the Indian’s own counter-attacking game. “We knew he is an explosive boxer, so we asked Amit to stay away from him. Amit had not had a great first round in his semifinal but today he was good, so he did not have to catch up and he connected his punches,” said Indian boxing’s High Performance Director and men’s chief coach Santiago Nieva.

Saturday’s win marks the highest point of Amit’s meteoric rise to the top.

Vijender Singh and Vikas Krishan were the last set of male gold-medallists for India at the Asian Games. They had won gold at the 2010 Guangzhou edition.

Vikas (75kg) settled for a bronze this time after being forced to pull out from the semifinals due to an eye injury. It was his third successive medal after the 2010 gold and 2014 bronze, making him the first boxer to achieve the feat.

In the 2014 Games, M. C. Mary Kom became the first and till now the only Indian woman boxer to fetch an Asian Games gold medal for India. The first Indian boxer to claim an Asiad gold was Padam Bahadur Mall, who notched it back in 1962.

The legendary Hawa Singh is the only Indian boxer with back-to-back gold medals at the Games, his top finishes coming in 1966 and 1970 in the heavyweight category. — PTI