Shiva settles for silver

TASHKENT, May 6: Fourth seed Shiva Thapa (60kg) settled for a silver medal at the Asian Boxing Championships after an injury-forced loss in the fil here on Saturday, becoming the first Indian to claim three back-to-back medals at the continental showpiece.
Shiva, up against second seed and local favourite Elnur Abduraimov, lost in a split verdict after a head-butt from his opponent resulted in a cut.
It was in the fil few seconds of the opening round when Shiva sustained the cut, forcing a stoppage by the referee.
The disappointment of missing out on the gold aside, the silver is his third successive medal at the continental showpiece after a gold in 2013 and a bronze in the 2015 edition.
The Assam-pugilist, a World Championships bronze- medallist in bantamweight (56kg), shifted to lightweight in December last year. He went on to win a gold medal at the tiol Championships before a couple of early losses in tourments in Bulgaria and Thailand.
 The 23-year-old defeated Olympic bronze-medallist, Asian Games gold-medallist and top seed Dorjnyambuu Otgondalai of Mongolia in the semifil yesterday, during which he also sustained a cut above his eye. There was also some disappointment for India with Gaurav Bidhuri (56kg) losing his box-off for a World Championship slot to Japan's Ryomei Taka in a split verdict.
The World Championships are due to be held in August- September and the top six boxers from each weight category will qualify for the mega-event in Germany.