Making up for his early exit in the World Championships at Milan, Suranjoy Singh created history by clinching gold in the 51kg weight category in the AIBA President's Cup at Baku on Friday.
Suranjoy, representing Asia-I team, clinched the title outperforming former World Championship bronze-medallist Nordine Oubaali of France (Europe-II team) 8-1.
“Suranjoy's opponent, Nordine, was quite aggressive. So, we decided to be even more so in the final,” said India's chief national coach G.S. Sandhu, who is in Baku as coach of the Asia-I team.
"For the final today, we made a plan to attack and immediately close guard. Suranjoy did exactly what we had planned and didn't let his opponent score even a point in the first two rounds," the coach added.
At the end of the second round, the Asian champion was leading 7-0, and after the third and the final round, the score-line was 8-1.
After Vijender's Olympic bronze-medal feat and the World Championship's third place, this can be rated as the next best performance by an Indian boxer at the world stage in the last couple of years.
2009 has been an amazing year for Suranjoy as he lifted his fourth gold. He won gold in the Asian Championships after a gap of 15 years. “It's a very heartening performance both for Suranjoy and Indian boxing. We were upset after his early exit from the World Championships, as he was a potential medallist. But, today, he made up for that loss and gave his best ever performance at this level," said Sandhu.
{{/usCountry}}2009 has been an amazing year for Suranjoy as he lifted his fourth gold. He won gold in the Asian Championships after a gap of 15 years. “It's a very heartening performance both for Suranjoy and Indian boxing. We were upset after his early exit from the World Championships, as he was a potential medallist. But, today, he made up for that loss and gave his best ever performance at this level," said Sandhu.
{{/usCountry}}In the 2008 edition of the President’s Cup at Taiwan, Vijender had bagged a bronze. At that time, boxers used to don colours of their respective countries, but from this year onwards, the AIBA has changed the rules and now the representation is from continents.