Indian pugilists go down tamely

It was a disastrous day for Indian boxers at the 14th Asian Games on Wednesday. They crashed out without much resistance and ended the country's hopes of a medal in the event.

In the light-flyweight (60kg), Ramamand lost his quarter-final bout to Ruslan Mussinov of Kazakhstan 24-37 on points.

The Indian was overpowered by a much superior and agile opponent. Ruslan attacked from the start and Ramanand found it difficult to defend. The Kazakh unleashed a flurry of punches which rattled the Indian. Ruslan kept pounding the Indian who only tried to counter in the latter stages of the bout.

Ramanand did manage to win some quick points but the Kazakh had built up such a big lead, which proved too huge to overcome.

The other Indian in the quarter-finals, Sanjay Kumar, in the welterweight (67 kg) category, was thrashed by Kim Jung-Joo of South Korea 0-15 before the referee stopped the contest.

Sanjay just did not know how to counter the ruthless Korean. The Indian ran around to avoid the punishment and his agony ended when referee came to his rescue and stopped the fight.

In other one-sided contests, Commonwealth Games bronze medalist Jitender Kumar lost to Baurzhan Kairmenov of Kazakhstan 7-28 on points in the middleweight (75kg) quarter-final and in the heavyweight (91kg) class V Johnson bowed to Syria's Naser Alshami when the referee stopped the contest in the third round of the last eight bout.

Jitender was a big disapointment. He was expected to put up a good fight but flopped. His fight was an embarrassment and about Johnson's bout the less said the better.

Coach G S Sandhu had no excuses to offer. "The rivals were far tougher and superior," was all he said.