New Delhi:
Fourth seed Shiva Thapa on Tuesday advanced to the Asian Boxing Championship quarterfinals in 60 Kilogramme category after defeating Kyrgyzstan's Omurbek Malabekov in a split verdict.
Shiva is a World Championships bronze-medallist and a two-time medallist at the Asian meet will face Chinese Taipei's Chu-En Lai in the quarterfinals on Wednesday.
Sumit Sangwan (91kg), a former gold-medallist also advanced at the Asian Olympic Qualifiers. He defeated Mongolia's Erdenebayar Sandagsuren in his last-16bout late last night. Up ahead for Sumit is third-seeded Chinese Fengkai Yu.
Vikas Krishan (75kg), Gaurav Bidhuri (56kg) and Amit Phangal (49kg) are the other Indian boxers to have entered the quarters so far.
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The tournament, featuring 179 boxers from 28 countries, is a qualifier for the August-September World Championships in Hamburg, Germany.
India had won four medals at the last Asian Championships in 2015. Vikas had won the country its lone silver medal, while Shiva, L Devendro Singh (52kg) and Satish (+91kg) had settled for bronze medals.
(With PTI Inputs)
