India off to good start

New Delhi: Indian boxer Dinesh Dagar (69kg) upstaged former Olympic bronze-medallist Evaldas Petrauskas to enter the quarterfinals of the 38th International GeeBee Tournament in Helsinki, Finland.

India were assured of two medals at the event after draws came out with Asian Championships silver-medallist Sumit Sangwan (91kg) and rookie Govind Sahani (49kg) getting byes into the semifinals.

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In the opening-round bouts held Thursday evening, the 23-year-old Dagar, a silver-medallist from last year’s India Open, prevailed 3-2 against Petrauskas.

It was a big victory for Dagar as the Lithuanian is also a former Youth Olympics gold-medallist and a bronze-winner at the 2017 European Championships.

However, the campaign ended early for Ankit Khatana (64kg). Khatana lost 0-5 to England’s Luke McCormack in the opening round.

Close to 100 boxers from 15 nations are competing in this European calendar event.

The participating countries include Australia, Canada, England, France, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and the United States of America among others.

PTI