Post Olympics disappointment,a stronger,better boxer

Though Shiva lost the bout,he had come back with enough credit. He had started the fight on the back foot,forced onto the ropes by Valdez’s body punching shots but found his footing early in the third round where he found some combinations before appearing to lose stamina towards the end of the bout.

“If I had got past Valdez,I would surely have come back with a medal,” he says. It’s not mere bluster. In the Ireland exposure tour just before the Olympics,Shiva had beaten London’s eventual silver medallist Joe John Nevin. Shiva had also beaten bronze medallist Satoshi Shimizu at the Asian Olympic Qualifiers in Astana.

Watching the defeat may have been hurtful,Shiva analysed the video for faults. One,Shiva noted,was his lack of stamina towards the end of each round. While boxers cut weight before fights to make their category,losing too much too quickly just ahead of a bout leaves you dehydrated and weak. This is what happened to Shiva as well.

He now tries to keep his off season weight as close to his competition weight of 56kg as possible. “This means I kept my felicitation ceremonies after London to a minimum. I started training almost immediately. I start cutting my weight earlier now,” he says.

In London,he adds,he wasn’t as mentally strong as he could have been. “I was thinking about so many things during that fight. I was thinking about the pressure and expectations and didn’t focus on beating Fierro. The pressure still remains but I now know how to keep it away,” he says.

As an example,he cites his recent bout against the home boxer Obadah Alkasbeh in the Asian Championship final in Jordan. “The crowd was behind him and I wasn’t sure how the judges would score. But I kept these thoughts aside and kept to my gameplan – to go after him and not give him a chance,” he says.

There is one area where he feels he still has a long way to improve. “Things will be a lot different at the Worlds when we will box without headguards. In Asia it doesn’t matter so much because there is no professional history. That won’t be the same for teams from Europe and America. I hope Indians get a chance to take part in the AIBA pro boxing and WSB because that will help us improve,” he says.