Tokyo Olympians Set To Skip National Boxing Championships: Report

Indian boxers who competed at Tokyo Olympics are set to miss the upcoming national championships due to injuries and a lack of practice time.

The upcoming national men's boxing championship is unlikely to feature any of the five pugilists who competed at the Tokyo Olympics, ruling them out of contention for next month's world championships in Serbia as well. Amit Panghal (52kg), Manish Kaushik (63kg), Vikas Krishan (69kg), Ashish Chaudhary (75kg) and Satish Kumar (+91kg) had competed at the Tokyo Games. All of them lost in the preliminary rounds barring Satish, who went down in the quarters. Of these, Vikas, Satish and Ashish are nursing injuries and have withdrawn. There is no word yet on what Amit and Manish would do but a source said they might also skip the tournament due to "lack of practice time". "They have opted out of the Nationals because they haven't been able to train well since coming back from Tokyo. One or two might still consider it closer to the tournament but in all likelihood, they wouldn't compete," a source close to the boxers told PTI. The Nationals are due to be held from September 15 in Bellary, Karnataka. The Boxing Federation of India has stated that only the gold-winners from the national championships will make the squad for the world event scheduled to start on October 26 in Belgrade, Serbia.