Amit, Sachin move close to Paris Olympic quota, Ankushita robbed

Indian boxers had a mixed day at the ongoing Boxing Olympic qualifiers in Thailand as Nishant Dev won the Paris quota in men's 71kg while Ankushita Boro was knocked owing to a poor decision from the judges in women's 60kg.

Later in the day, Amit Panghal and Sachin Siwach moved close to the Paris Olympics quota by winning their respective bouts.

Despite winning the two rounds in her quarter-final clash, Ankushita lost the bout 2:3 leaving the fans and officials fuming alike.

Boro was slow off the blocks and that allowed her Swedish opponent to take control. But the Indian fought back in Round 2 and looked on course to reverse the deficit as she earned a 4:1 verdict for the round. She continued to attack the Swede in the final round but Alexiusson landed a few punches of her own at the right time to convince three of the five judges to rule in her favour.

In 66kg, Arundhati Chaudhary also suffered the same fate when she lost against Jessica Triebelova of Slovakia 1:4.

Nishant, who had missed out on the Paris Olympic berth in the 1st qualifier in Italy after going down to 2021 world championships silver medallist Omari Jones of the USA at the same stage, was the first to achieve that goal.

He won the quota after defeating Moldova’s Vasile Cebotari 5:0 in the quarterfinals of 71kg.

In the evening session, Panghal came out all guns blazing to humble Kim in all three rounds while Sachin continued to put up a resolute show to reach the semifinals. However, with only three quota places on offer in the 57kg weight category, he needs to win one more bout to seal his Paris berth.

Sachin Siwach defeated France's Samuel Kistohurry 4-1 in the 57kg quarterfinals while 2022 Commonwealth Games gold medallist Amit Panghal packed off Inkyu Kim of South Korea 5:0 to reach the Round of 8 in the 51kg weight category and kept their qualifying hopes alive.

Sanjeet also failed to make it to the quarterfinals after his efforts were not enough to get the better of Azerbaijan's Loren Berto Alfonso in the 92kg pre-quarterfinals.

India had already secured three quotas for the Paris Games with Nikhat Zareen (women’s 50kg), Preeti (54kg), and Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist Lovlina Borgohain (75kg) confirming their berths by winning medals at the 2022 Asian Games and had sent 10 boxers to Thailand to add to the list.