Dubai, Jun 1 : Indian boxer Sanjeet bagged gold medal as Indian contingent finished the 2021 ASBC Asian Championships with an unprecedented 15 medals – comprising two golds, five silvers and eight bronze.

Sanjeet registered a convincing 4-1 victory against the Rio Olympic silver medallist Vassiliy Levit of Kazakhstan in the men’s 91kg final on Monday night.

However, Tokyo-bound Amit Panghal (52kg) and Olympian Shiva Thapa (64kg) settled for silver at the Championships, which is jointly hosted by the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) and UAE Boxing Federation.

During India’s first bout on Monday night, the defending champion Panghal went down fighting against the reigning Olympics champion Zoirov Shakhobidin in a hard-fought men’s 52kg final.

The World Championships silver medallist put up a great fight against the world champion but it wasn’t enough for the Indian to go past Uzbek boxer as he suffered a narrow 3-2 defeat with 29-28, 28-29, 28-29, 28-29, 30-27 scoreline.

During a high-voltage 52kg summit clash between top two seeds, both the boxers showed great skills and attacked from the word go. The second round saw defending champion Panghal taking time as he was more accurate, hit timely punches with more power and was sharp in defense as well.

However, Shakhobidin fought back well in time and managed to tilt the game in his favour.

The Indian team, however, lodged a protest against the verdict contesting round 2 decision but it was not accepted by the Jury Commission as the Panghal ended with silver medal.

Later, Thapa too suffered a close defeat by split 2-3 against the Asian Games silver medallist Mongolia’s Baatarsukh Chinzorig.

The world championships bronze medallist is the only second male boxer in the world to win five medals at the Asian Championships. The 27-year-old Assam boxer has previously won gold in 2013, silver in 2017 and two bronze in 2015 and 2019.

Earlier on Sunday, Pooja Rani (75kg) had secured India’s first gold at the on-going event. Other Indian women boxers including seasoned campaigner Mary Kom (51kg), Lalbuatsaihi (64kg) and Anupama (+81kg) grabbed silver medals on the same day.

Meanwhile, eight boxers -Vikas Krishan (69kg) Simranjit Kaur (60kg), Lovlina Borgohain (69kg), Jaismine (57kg), Sakshi Chaudhary (54kg), Monika (48kg), Saweety (81kg) and Varinder Singh (60kg) – returned with bronze at the championships as the 19-member Indian contingent ensured the country’s best-ever show surpassing the previous highest of 13 medals achieved during the 2019 edition in Bangkok.

‘This has been a challenging year for all of us and despite all the uncertainties our boxers had to undergo, it is absolutely heartening to see them ending the Asian Championships campaign with 15 medals including 2 golds and some close decisions that of Amit Panghal and Mary Kom in the finals.

Our boxers have yet again ensured a record-breaking feat and am extremely proud of each one of them,’ BFI President Ajay Singh said.

‘These performances I am sure will motivate all our boxers to put more efforts ahead of the Olympics and help realise the Mission 2021 by winning medals in Tokyo,’ he added.

The International Boxing Association (AIBA) has allocated USD 4,00,000 prize money for this Championships.

The gold medallists of men’s and women’s categories are awarded with USD 10,000 while both the silver and bronze medal winners take home USD 5,000 and 2,500 respectively.(UNI)