Manish Kaushik Assure India of Medals at World Boxing Championships

Kaushik was sharp with his counter-attacks and not for once seemed fazed by his opponent's attempts at trying to draw him in with a low guard.

Ekaterinburg (Russia): India were assured of an unprecedented second medal at the World Men's Boxing Championships after Manish Kaushik (63kg) entered the semifinals of the marquee event by defeating Brazil's Wanderson de Oliveira 5-0.

• Commonwealth Games silver-medallist Kaushik, a former national champion making his debut at the world event, was the next to take the ring and produced a composed performance against a flamboyant rival, who paid for very poor defence.
• Kaushik was sharp with his counter-attacks and not for once seemed fazed by his opponent's attempts at trying to draw him in with a low guard.
• Next up for Kaushik is Cuban top seed Andy Gomez Cruz, who out-punched Russia's eighth-seeded Ilia Popov.

Cruz was the light welterweight (64kg) category gold-medallist in the 2017 edition and is also a two-time Pan American Games gold-winner.

Meanwhile, Sanjeet (91kg), a former India Open gold-medallist, lost 1-4 to Ecuador's seventh-seeded Julio Castillo Torres in his semifinal bout. Torres is a Pan-American Games silver-medallist.

Earlier, Amit Panghal was assured of a maiden world championship medal after he defeated Filipino Carlo Paalam 4-1 to enter the semifinals of the big event.

Interestingly, before this year, India had never won more than one bronze medal in a single edition of the world championship. The overall medal count for the country stood at four bronze medals claimed by Vijender Singh (2009), Vikas Krishan (2011), Shiva Thapa (2015) and Gaurav Bidhuri (2017).