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After all, we're mates |
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By: ASHWIN FERRO |
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Date:
2008-08-21 |
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Place: BEIJING |
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India's Vijender Kumar (right) during his bout against Ecuador's Carlos Gongora in the men's 75kg quarter-final at the Beijing Olympic Games yesterday.
PIC/GETTY IMAGES | BOXING may be an individual sport, but Vijender Kumar (75kg Middleweight) has two men to thank for his Olympic bronze medal-winning achievement at the Workers Gymnasium yesterday Akhil Kumar (54 kg Bantamweight) and Jitender Kumar (51 kg Flyweight).
Akhil and Jitender lost their respective quarter-final bouts Akhil to Veaceslav Gojan of Republic of Moldova on Monday and Jitender to European champion Georgy Balakshin of Russia an hour before Vijender took to the ring. But both stood by their teammate in his hour of need.
Support
"Akhil and Jitender could have sat back, disappointed having lost out on medals. They could have left me alone to fight my battle and I would have struggled.
Instead, they egged me on and assured me that I could do it. They said that I should not think about their failures, but should look forward to my success," remarked the 22-year-old, minutes after creating history by beating Ecuador's Carlos Gongora 9:4 to enter the semi-finals of the boxing competition. He is assured of a medal since losing Olympic semi-finalists are awarded bronze medals.
Vijender admitted that the pressure building up on him was immense as he was the India's only medal hope in the sport after his counterparts were beaten.
Silver lining
However, there was also a silver lining to it. As Vijender explained, "Going in last, I assessed Akhil and Jitender's fights, and tried not to commit the mistakes they made. That helped me a lot as both gave me their inputs too," added Vijender, who rightly took the lead and then maintained it till the end unlike his teammates who started off badly and gave their opponents the upper hand.
Vijender is looking forward to his penultimate clash against seasoned campaigner Cuban Emilio Bayeaux Correa, the reigning Pan American champion. "I can't wait to get into the ring again," he said.
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