‘Standing on podium was a proud moment’

 

 

 

COMING from small bylanes in sleepy town of Kamptee, pugilist Anant Deshmukh has made the country proud by winning a medal at Youth Asian Games that concluded in Bahrain, recently. Anant, who took to boxing at a tender age of just six after seeing city’s noted coach Ganesh Purohit training boxers at Divisional Sports Complex in Mankapur in 2015, won a bronze medal in his third international appearance. Participating in the Under-19 63-66kg weight group, Anant stormed into the semi-final and ended up with a podium finish. “I think, I was a bit less aggressive in that semi-final, otherwise I could have won that bout. I went to the tournament with the mentality of returning back with a medal. It was a proud feeling standing on the podium. It felt very satisfied to have done something for the country,” said Anant while interacting with the scribes upon his arrival in the city from Bahrain.

 

“We were a team of seven boys and an equal number of girls. We had an impressive outing and returned with seven medals (five by girls and two by boys) from the event and I can assure everybody that our batch has a great future,” asserted Anant, a class XI Arts student at Delhi Sports School where he trains and studies at government’s cost. Performing impressively, southpaw Anant defeated Umarjon Asrorov of Tajikistan unanimously 5-0 in his Round of 16 match and then beat Thailand’s Santi Kaewboonraung with the referee stopping the contest in the quarter-final. In the semi-final match, Anant went down to Daniyal Shalkarbay of Kazakhstan, who went on to win the final.

 

“Anant was in fine form but his opponent showed a lot of maturity and control during the fight. I hope Anant have learnt a lot from this tour and will surely improve,” said Purohit, Anant’s first coach. “Anant is current national Number 1 player and his next target is to make it to India team for Youth Olympics to be held in Senegal in 2026,” said Anant’s father Gaurishankar. Parents of city’s oterh upcoming boxers (Samiksha and Malhar), Pradeep Singh and Milind Sable; Sports Teacher at Kendriya Vidyalaya Kamptee Dinesh Chhapane and assistant coach Yogesh Mishra were also present.