Fast,furious and fearless Devendro in the ring today

The hard work is paying off,for Laishram Devendro Singhs punches are now the talk of the town.

TWO seasons ago,a wrist injury stopped Devendro Singh from doing what comes most naturally to him after breathing throwing fast punches. In days to follow,while undergoing rehab to strengthen the strained ligament,the boxer was instructed by physiotherapist Dr Nikhil Latey to dig deep,literally. Devendro found a way: kneeling down next to a long jump pit,the boxer would dig out fistfuls of sand for several minutes,pitting his knuckles,nerves and sinews against every defiant granule.

The hard work is paying off,for Laishram Devendro Singhs punches are now the talk of the town in London. They come fast and furious. They come without fear of reputation. And he sends them down,quite simply because he can boast of that impressive work rate. Hes extremely unorthodox and has a rare speed talent. He throws four-five punches in succession,when others normally employ a combination of one-two or three at most, says Indian Boxing Federation general secretary P K Muralidharan Raja,also Indias chef de mission here.

In fact,in one of the earliest tests that Olympic Gold Quest doctors put him through,Devendro threw no less than 74 punches on a (non-responding) punch bag in 10 seconds,just to underline his rapid hits. As the only remaining Indian male boxer in contention,Devendro is now under the spotlight in 49 kg,though admittedly not under too much pressure,for he rarely bothers glancing at seedings and rankings and past performance.

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His quarterfinal opponent,Irishman Paddy Barnes,is a boisterous young man from Belfast,who says Usain Bolt wanted his autograph in the Games Village and loudly guffaws when he gets the desired reaction. Quite simply,with all the travelling Irish fans for support,and the locals loving his showboating,Devendro is up against an intimidating rival.

The trash-talking apart,Paddy is an accomplished and fierce boxer. Just as well then that the Manipuri is not the sort to mull too much over the Irishmans CV. No one can tell what hell do in the ring,and hes even more unpredictable and fierce when he gets angry,for he likes to do the hitting, says coach G S Sandhu.

In the World Championship,his first international event during which he qualified for the Games,he beat a Mexican boxer by an Indian record margin of 40 points. In his first-round win here,the referee had to stop the contest to stop the Honduran boxer from being beaten to pulp.

That attitude comes with its disadvantages too,as Dr Latey points out. The wrist injury happened because of a muscle imbalance,where hed over-worked his active wrist. Sometimes you have to rein him back from over-training because he cant stop once he starts punching, he says.

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When reputations to defend and defeat are proving to be quite a wretched burden for Indian boxers,Devendro offers an option of going all-out,minus worry or fear.

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