India's Vijender Singh stunned the boxing fraternity by comprehensively defeating Olympic gold medallist Bakhtiyar Artayev of Kazakhstan in the quarter-finals of the AIBA President's Cup boxing tournament in Taipei on Tuesday.
Vijender won the bout on points 12:7 in the 75-kg category, thus proving that his recent performances have not been a flash in the pan.
The first AIBA President's Cup opened on Sunday in the Hsinchuang Stadium Taipei County in Sinjhuang City, Taipei. Only those who have qualified for the Beijing Olympics are eligible to participate. Many of the world's top boxers are participating in the event, which finishes on May 31, some using the tournament as a final hit-out prior to the Olympic Games in Beijing, China. A total of 126 boxers from 26 countries are competing across the 11 weight categories with the semifinals and finals to be held after Thursday's rest day on Friday and Saturday respectively.
The Indian Contingent of four Olympic Qualified boxers had mixed fortunes at this prestigious run up to the Olympics. On the opening day Anthresh Lalit Lakra lost to Dmytro Bulenkov of Ukraine in the 57-kg category. On Tuesday, Jitender lost to Yunusov Anvar of Tajkistan on points 5:9 in a hard hitting exciting encounter.
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Dinesh Kumar is slated to meet Abbos Atoeve of Uzbekistan on Wednesday, who is the current world champion in 81-kg category.
Vijender's victory against the Olympic Gold Medalist is all the more sweet revenge as he had lost a very close bout against Artayev at the Doha Asian Games in December 2006 in the semi finals.
However on Tuesday it was a different story. Vijender was leading throughout the four rounds and coach G S Sandhu was exuberant while describing Vijender's victory. He stated that Vijender was as cool as a cucumber and flustered his famed opponent with deft movements and lightning fast straight punches and jabs to the front of the face and side of the body.
The Kazakh could not read Vijender's style and despite a last minute flurry and hectic trade of punches could not match Vijender in the ring.
Vijender now meets Angkhan Chomphuphuang of Thailand in the semi-finals on Friday.
