Four get seeding, byes for all Indians in Asian Boxing Championship

Tashkent: Four Indian boxers, including Vikas Krishan and Shiva Thapa, were seeded while the entire 10-member team managed to get first-round byes in the Asian Boxing Championship which begins, here on Sunday.

While former Asian Games gold-medallist Vikas has been given the top billing in the middleweight category, former Asian champion Shiva (60kg) is seeded fourth.

Former Commonwealth Games gold-medallist Manoj Kumar has been seeded sixth in the welterweight division and Satish Kumar (+91) has got the third seeding in super heavyweight.

The tournament, featuring 179 boxers from 28 countries, is a qualifier for the August-September World Championships in Hamburg, Germany.

The top-six in each of the 10 weight categories in this tournament will make the cut for the big event.

Indians will be seen in action only from May 1 when Vikas, Sumit Sangwan (81kg), Gaurav Bidhuri (56kg), Amit Phangal (49kg) and Ashish Kumar 64kg) open their campaigns.

Vikas will start off against the winner of the contest between Kyrgyzstan's Yktyiar Shabdanbaev and Thailand's Pathomsak Kuttiya tomorrow.

Sumit will be up against Mongolia's Erdenebayar Sandagsuren, while Gaurav will take on Thailand's Yuttapong Tongdee.

Asian youth silver-winner Ashish Kumar (64kg) will face Uzbekistan's Ikboljon Kholdarov.

Amit, a bronze medallist from the Strandja Memorial Tournament (Bulgaria) in February, has a relatively easy opener against Afghanistan's Ramish Rahmani.

On May 2, Shiva, Satish, Manoj, Manish Panwar (81kg) and Kavinder Singh (49kg) will open their campaign in the tournament.

Shiva, a World Championships bronze-medallist and a two- time medallist at the Asian meet, will face the winner of the contest between Kyrgyzstan's Omurbek Malabekov and Korea's Haeju Choi.

Satish will face the winner of the match between Mongolia's Yerbolat Tulyek and Kazakhstan's Kamshybek Kunkabayev.

Manish will be up against Sri Lanka's Ambagasange Gunarathna, Manoj will square off against Afghanistan's Allah Rahimi.

Indonesia's Aldoms Suguro awaits Kavinder.

India had won four medals at the last Asian Championships in 2015. Vikas had won the country its lone silver medal, while Shiva, Devendro and Satish (+91kg) had settled for bronze medals.

India's last gold medal at the Asian meet had come in 2013 through Shiva, when he was competing in the bantamweight division. Prior to that M Suranjoy Singh (52kg) had won a gold medal in the 2009 edition of the Championship.

The Squad: Amit Panghal (49kg), Kavinder Singh (52kg), Gaurav Bidhuri (56kg), Shiva Thapa (60kg), Ashish Kumar (64kg), Manoj Kumar (69kg), Vikas Krishan (75kg), Manish Panwar (81kg), Sumit Sangwan (91kg), Satish Kumar (+91kg).