Vikas zooms to 2nd, Vijender not there in latest AIBA Rankings

New Delhi: Teen boxing sensation Vikas Krishan (69kg), who fetched India`s lone medal at last month`s World Championships, zoomed to a career-best second spot but Olympic hero Vijender Singh (75kg) did not find a place in the latest international rankings issued by AIBA.

Asian Games gold-medallist Vikas, who clinched a bronze at the Baku World Championships last month, has 1300 points in the latest rankings, making him the highest-placed Indian across all 10 weight categories of the International Boxing Association`s (AIBA) latest list. The top spot in Vikas` category has gone to Ukraine`s Taras Shelestyuk, who beat the 19-year-old Indian in the semifinals of the showpiece, which was also the first Olympic qualifying event. Four Indian boxers -- L Devendro Singh (49kg), Jai Bhagwan (60kg), Manoj Kumar (64kg) and Vikas -- made the Olympic cut by reaching the World Championships` quarterfinals and all of them have improved their rankings as well. But former world number one Vijender, who lost in the very first round of the mega-event, did not find a place in the list of ranked middleweight boxers due to the two-year rolling period criteria, under which points earned at the 2009 World Championships were removed from the current ranking. Vijender was India`s first medallist at the World Championships when he fetched a bronze in Milan, a feat that catapulted him to the top spot in the rankings at that time. PTI