Hamburg: Confidence bruised by near-misses and a nagging back injury – this is what Gaurav Bidhuri carried into the World Boxing Championships here before his career got a new lease of life by the lone medal he assured for India.
The 24-year-old was not even meant to be in the team till the second half of July which is when fortune smiled on him and he was handed a wildcard entry by the Asian Boxing Confederation (ASBC).
“When I got to know that I have got a wildcard entry, I went around confirming it with every coach, I kept asking ‘is this right?’ I asked each one of them. When everyone said, I had made it, then only I relaxed a bit,” Gaurav told this agency here Wednesday.
The Delhi-boxer has never been among the most talked about in Indian circuit and has been prone to making quarterfinal exits in almost every tournament he was picked for. The most recent of these quarterfinal exits happened in the Asian Championships in Tashkent earlier this year.
“I have nearly always lost in the quarterfinal stage of every tournament that I have competed in. Here also, once I reached quarters, I was having these negative thoughts that may be again the ‘same thing will happen, I will lose, that I am not good enough’. But then another part of me was also telling me to break this jinx,” he spoke about how he sparred with creeping self doubts.
“The toughest part of being an athlete is to control the mind. I was having all kinds of thoughts. All of them were not negative but then not every thought was positive too. There was a lot of noise in my mind, something which only I could hear,” added the youngster with a smile.
And now, Gaurav might become the first Indian boxer to win a medal better than bronze if he proceeds to the semifinal by winning his bout Thursday. His opponent is American Duke Ragan.
“I have been battling injuries, including my back problem, but did not care about them. I have just continued my training relentlessly and finally, I will have a medal to show for my efforts,” Gaurav pointed out.
Gaurav, who has joined Vijender Singh, Vikas Krishan and Shiva Thapa on the bronze medal list, now wants to go a step further. “I am suffering actually. I can’t sit for too long and can’t even sleep for too long. I have trouble walking as well, but I am determined to go all the way,” the Delhi lad asserted.
India’s Swedish coach Santiago Nieva, perhaps, summed it up best. “He got a lucky break, he made it count. That’s luck, that’s life.”
press trust of india