Mandeep clinches gold at Mongolian boxing tourney

Mandeep Jangra (69kg) was the lone Indian boxer to claim a gold medal among the five finalists but the country’s contingent gave a fine account of itself in the summit clashes of the Ulaanbaatar Cup in Mongolia on Sunday.

“I have won an international gold medal after a long time and I hope it would count for something in getting me selected for the Asian Games,” Mandeep, a former Commonwealth Games silver-medallist, said from Ulaanbaatar.

The silver medals went to both the women finalists Sonia Lather (57kg) and Lovlina Borgohain (69kg) and Himanshu Sharma (49kg) and Etash Khan (56kg).

All the four boxers fought their hearts out but failed to find favour with judges. India ended the tournament with one gold, four silver, and four bronze medals.

“It has been a tremendous performance. Those who made the finals were obviously good but even those who lost in the semi-finals gave very good performances. I don’t have any complaints with any of them,” men’s coach Jaidev Bisht said.

“Had we been slightly lucky in some bouts, the colour of some medals would have been better,” he added, referring to some of the unexpected losses.

Mandeep was up against local boxer Otgonbaatar Byamba-Erdene and set the pace of the bout with his aggressive combination punches.

It helped that his opponent looked out of sorts for most parts, attempting wild swings that hardly connected. Mandeep won the bout on a split decision.