(Image credit: TOI)
On Saturday, Indian boxer Deepak Kumar’s astonishing run at the 72nd Strandja Memorial tournament ended with a silver medal in Sofia, Bulgaria after he lost a fiercely-contested flyweight (52kg) final. Two-time European championships gold-medallist Daniel Asenov was up against Deepak. The session finished in a split decision in the favour local favourite.
The Indian had made a significant flutter in the tournament when he stunned reigning Olympic and title holder – Shakhobidin Zoirov of Uzbekistan in his semi-final round.
On Saturday, the Bulgarian appeared to be the busier of the two fighters in the opening round and was more keen in his counter-attacking game.
Deepak’s second round was better and he additionally set up a more grounded protective execution yet the appointed authorities decided for Asenov. In the last three minutes, in any case it was Deepak who made major decisions for the most of the part, effortlessly dodging his rival’s relentless attacks and also launching some strong ones of his own. But Asenov, despite being visibly jaded, had done enough to seal the issue by that point.
A Naib Subedar in the Indian Army, Deepak is likewise a previous India Open gold-medallist.
With this, India gained two medals at the event this year. Meanwhile none of the Indian women boxers could make the medal rounds and got eliminated by the quarterfinal stage.
