Indian boxers aim big at Worlds

Shiva Thapa and Vikas Krishan will be among India's best bets to better both the colour and number of medals at the 19th World Boxing Championships.

Placed joint 49th in the alltime medal count, India have a bronze each to show for from the 2009, 2011 and the 2015 World Championships.

Shiva (2015), Vikas (2011) and the now-professional Vijender Singh (2009) are the only ones to have been on the podium of the prestigious event, which doubles up as an Olympic qualifier in alternate editions.

For this edition, an eightstrong team has made the cut through the Asian Championships held in Tashkent earlier this year.

"Our build-up has been fantastic. We had a good Asian Championship where the boys won two silver and two bronze medals and finished third overall," the team's Swedish coach Santiago Nieva told PTI.

"Then we went to France and Czech Republic for trainingcum-competition trips and the results were excellent there. So, I am hopeful of a strong performance but I don't want to make any predictions about the medals," he added.

To be tied with Australia, Tajikistan and Czech Republic in the all-time medal tally isn't exactly a true reflection of how far Indian boxing has come since Vijender won the breakthrough bronze in 2009 in Milan.

"This World Championship is going to be slightly different from the previous one because the draws will be opened up. There have been changes in weight categories, some of those who went to Rio Olympics last year have quit. So there is going to be a lot of churning," Nieva pointed out.

"So, yes, we can hope for more than just one bronze medal," he added.

The boxers, on their part, also spoke confidently about their chances.

"It has been a long journey and we have seen a lot in all these years. World Championships is the premier tournament for us after the Olympics. I am as prepared as I could ever be for a big tournament," said Shiva, all of 24 but a two-time Olympian with three back-toback Asian Championship medals.