Naveen Boora in medal rounds of Strandja Memorial tourney
Naveen Boora (69kg) assured himself of at least a bronze by advancing to the semi-finals while Manjeet Singh (+91kg) entered the quarters on an all-win day for Indian boxers at the 72nd Strandja Memorial Tournament in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Boora defeated Brazil's Eravio Edson in his quarter-final bout, prevailing 5-0 in the contest.
Manjeet, on the other hand, got the better of Ireland's Gytis Lisinskas in his last-16 stage bout on Wednesday night.
Earlier, Jyoti Gulia (51kg) upstaged two-time world champion Nazym Kyzaiby of Kazakhstan to enter the quarterfinals along with two others.
Gulia, a 2017 world youth champion, defeated the gold-winner from the 2014 and 2016 senior world championships.
She will take on Romania's Perijoc Lacramioara in her quarterfinal bout later in the day.
Another Indian to enter the quarter-finals on the second day was Bhagyabati Kachari, who outclassed Russian opponent Anna Galimova 5-0 in the 75kg category.
The tournament features boxers from 30 nations, including France, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Russia, Sweden, Ukraine, United States of America and Uzbekistan.
India has sent a 12-member team for the prestigious event -- seven men and five women.
India skeet shooters in line for medals in Team events of Shotgun World Cup
Indian skeet shooters, including Olympic quota holders Mairaj Ahmad Khan and Angad Vir Singh Bajwa, were in line for medals in the team events at the Shotgun World Cup in Cairo.
On Wednesday, both the men's and women's three-member teams ended the first three qualification rounds in medal winning positions, with two more qualification rounds to go before the finals.
Mairaj and Angad shot scores of 70 and 67 each to end in 21st and 28th positions, respectively, in the individual competition. Gurjoat Khangura, the third Indian in the fray, got ahead of them in 19th place, matching Mairaj's score.
Their combined effort of 207 put them in the fourth spot for the moment in the men's team event.
The women's team, comprising Karttiki Singh Shaktawat, Parinaaz Dhaliwal and Ganemat Shekhon, ended day one in third place behind Russia and Kazakhstan after producing a combined score of 188.
In the women's skeet individual competition, Karttiki was best placed in 27th spot with a score of 64 out of 75.
Parinaaz and Ganemat were 28th and 29th respectively with identical scores of 62.
The individual finals are slotted on Thursday, while the team finals are scheduled for Friday.
The eight-day competition is the year's first Shotgun World Cup stage and assumes additional significance given that this will be the final chance for the shooters to qualify for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics on the basis of world ranking points.
