Star boxers Deepak Bhoria (51kg), Mohammad Hussamudin (57kg), and Nishant Dev (71kg) clinched bronze medals at the World Championships at Tashkent on Friday. India's journey at the tournament came to an end but this was their best-ever show at the marquee event.
While Hussamudin who was competing in his debut World Championships, was forced to withdraw around an hour before his semifinal. The other two boxers faced defeat in the last-four bouts.
Earlier, the 29-year-old Hussamudin sustained a knee injury in his quarterfinal game against J Diaz Ibanez of Bulgaria and decided and had to give a walkover to Cuba's Saidel Horta in the last-four clash.
"Hussamuddin gives a walkover due to injury and settles for bronze.
He had a knee injury in the last bout after which he had pain and swelling," the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) said in a statement.
"After careful and detailed assessment by the medical team, Team Management has decided that he won't take part in the semi-final bout which is to take place today as he doesn't want the injury to aggravate but rather recover for future competitions."
On the other hand, Deepak suffered a loss to two-time World Championships bronze medallist France's Bilal Bennama 3-4 in a close contest that went into bout review.
Nishant's semifinal also went to the bout review with the judges ruling in favour of the 2022 Asian champion and 2018 Asian Games silver medallist Aslanbek Shymbergenov of Kazakhstan.
It has been a stupendous performance from the boxers of India under Bernard Dunne, who joined the Indian boxing team only seven months ago as the High-Performance Director. In the quarterfinal bouts, Deepak Bhoria registered a resounding victory by defeating the boxer from Kyrgyzstan 5-0. On the other hand, Hussamuddin defeated Diaz Ibanez of Bulgaria 4-3. And, Nishant Dev had assured the third medal for the country by defeating Cuba's Jorge 5-0
