Only a day ago Balbir Singh was basking in the attention showered on him after his upset win over World Youth gold medalist Suranjoy Singh in the National Championship. What a difference a day makes. After going down 7-1 to Railway boxer Sanjay Singh in the quarterfinals,the strut and the swagger were gone. Balbir cut a lone,sorry figure. Where once he had boasted of taking home the National title,today he spoke dejectedly. I was hitting him but somehow the points did not register. I have lost. I dont blame anyone. What more can I say. For the 24-year-old former gold medalist at the World Cadet Championships,Balbir,the Nationals were the last chance to make a comeback to Indias core team of boxers after two years in the wilderness. While IBF general secretary PK Muralidaran has already said that volatile Balbir might still be considered for the Commonwealth core group,the boxer himself does not rate his chances too highly. Losing plotIt was clear even before Balbirs bout with Sanjay that the outcome would be depend on the formers ability to keep cool. In the opening rounds,Balbir came out aggressively,but his punches,though powerful were off target,To make things worse for Balbir,Sanjays guard was water tight. After two rounds Sanjay led 3-0. In the third round,Balbir got a caution from the referee which saw two points added to Sanjays tally. With time running out,Balbir,as he has been prone to doing throughout his career lost his cool,desperately looking for that one knock-out punch. I was confused,I did not know what I could do to register a point. Once you are down by three points,it becomes difficult to get back in the match. I lost my cool. He dropped his guard and that was the opening Sanjay was looking for as he scored two more points to take the victory. Incidentally Balbir had tried to represent Railways for this years competition,but lost in the qualifiers to Sanjay. With two junior national boxing golds already,the twenty year old Sanjay is now assured of a medal at his first Senior Nationals. Dilbagh on trackMeanwhile Dilbagh Singh of the Railways remained on track to secure a record Ninth National Seniors title with an 8-0 win over Punjab boxer Jagwinder in the 69 kg category,while former three time national champion and Olympian Diwakar Prasad of the Railways made it to the medal rounds of the 60kg category with a R.S.C (out classed) decision against Deepak from J&K. The referee stopped the fight in the second round after a vicious punch split opened a deep gash above Deepaks right eye. At that point Diwakar was leading 6 nil. Other results: 49kg: Vipin Kumar(UP) beat Sanjay Kolte (Services) 3-2,Amandeep Singh(Railways) beat Devendro(Manipur ) 4-0; 56kg Chote Lal(Services) beat Kulwinder Singh(Punjab) 6-0,Jitender Mann (Delhi) beat Pradeep Kumar(IBF) 10-4; 69kg Dilbag Singh (Delhi) beat Geetanand (Himachal Pradesh) 1-0; 75 Kg Kuldeep Singh (Railways) beat Jagat (Uttaranchal) 9-2; 81kg Dinesh Kumar (All India Police) beat Rahul (Madhya Pradesh) RSC (out classed); 91+ kg Paramjeet Samota (Railways) beat Ram Singh (All India Police) 12-0
