Tags:
Journalism of Courage
BANGKOK, APRIL 7: Indian hopes of clinching their fifth berth for the Sydney Olympics were dashed when a less-than fully fit H Srinivas Rao lost his flyweight box-off in the final Asian Zone Olympic Boxing Qualifying tournament here on Friday.
Rao, nursing a cut in the eyebrow region going into the bout between two losing semi-finalists for claiming the berth for finishing third, went down 3-16 on points to Hermensen Ballo of Indonesia.
National champion Rao further aggravated the injury and went down tamely and had to be content with the bronze medal for reaching the last four stage.
Star bantamweight pugilist Ng Dingko, the lone Indian to qualify from this tournament by reaching the final, expectedly gave a walkover to Chotipat Wongprates of Thailand as he was nursing a hairline crack on his left wrist.
Asian Games champion Dingko Singh was the fourth Indian to book his ticket to Sydney, after lightfly S Suresh Singh, middleweight Jitender Kumar and lightheavy Gurcharan Singh made it from the previous qualifier in Korea in January.
Dingko, who injured his hand during his semi-final victory over Iranian a Hadi Akbar, had beaten Wongprates in the semi-final on his way to the Asian Games gold medal here in 1998, but preferred to play it safe.
India, who fielded five boxers, claimed one silver and two bronze medals, including that of lightwelter Sanjit Singh.
Hosts Thailand bagged three golds, Iran and Uzbekistan got two each while Kazakshtan, Korea, Pakistan, Indonesia and Syria claimed one gold each.
