World Championships: Boxer Amit Panghal qualifies for Paris Olympics

Bangkok: Boxer Amit Panghal qualifies for the Paris Olympics 2024 after he defeated China's Chuang Liu in the 51kg quarterfinals of the 2nd World Qualification Tournament here on Sunday.

Panghal had a tight competition, defeating Liu 5-0, and he was the only World Championship silver medalist to reach his second Olympics entry. Now he is with the likes of Nishant Dev (71kg), Nikhat Zareen (50kg), Preeti Pawar (54kg) and Lovlina Borgohain (75kg), who all have entered the Paris Games.

Panghal had only one shot at making the Paris Olympics after he lost out to world championship bronze medallist Deepak Bhoria in the selection assessment for the earlier two qualifying events, and the 2018 Asian Games champion made the most of his opportunity.

Later in the day, Jaismine Lamboria (57kg) and Sachin Siwach (57kg) will also look to secure Olympic quotas.

Nishant Dev defeated Vasile Cebotari of Moldova 5:0 to advance to the 71kg semifinals of the Boxing World Qualifiers and became the fourth Indian and the first male boxer to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics. Dev, who had missed out on the Paris Olympic berth in the 1st Qualifier in Italy after going down to 2021 world championships silver medallist Omari Jones of USA at the same stage, was the first to achieve that goal. The 23-year-old was determined not to lose out this time around as he took control of Round 1 with a combination of a right-hand jab and a left-handed hook. Cebotari did put up a fight in Rounds 2 and 3, but Nishant's experience shone bright as he mixed caution with aggression and landed a few hooks and uppercuts to earn a unanimous verdict.