Sunil Wins Gold at Commonwealth Boxing Championships

New Delhi, July 29 (UNI) Champion pugilist Sunil Kumar used his ferocious upper cuts and jabs to deadly effect to win the only gold for India in Fly Wt (51 kgs) at the 5th Commonwealth Boxing Championships at Liverpool.

The young boxer handed out a classic boxing lesson to his famed opponent Paul Butler of England while the Indian team ended up with a commendable tally of 1 gold, 2 silver and six bronze medals.

Butler, who is popularly known as the 'Baby Faced Assassin' in the local circuit, eventually ran out of steam to lose 27:11 on points.

At the end of the first round, both boxers were evenly matched with Sunil having a slight edge with the score reading 3:2.

However, right from the start of the second round, Sunil intelligently stepped aside, time and again to score clean jabs at will and increased his lead to a score of 9:4 at the end of round two.

The third round was totally dominated by Sunil as Butler was reduced to a mere spectator with the Indian piling points at ease to take the score 16:5 in his favour. The fourth and final round saw a resurgent Butler vociferously cheered by the local fans with a few telling blows to Sunil but the Indian side stepped frequently to score cleanly and romp home a clear winner at 27:11.

Meanwhile, India's Light Fly (48 kgs) hope T Nanao Singh could not make much of a dent into his opponent P Barnes of North Ireland and had to be content with a silver after losing 30-22.

Even Rakesh Kalaskar had a tough opponent in light Wt (60 kgs) as he lost 32:10 to Tom Stalker of England to end up second best.

England were the overall champions of the 5th Commonwealth Boxing Championships followed by Australia and the young Indian Team stood third in the points and medals tally, according to information recieved here.

UNI