Click to play videoNew Delhi: An Olympic medal and two Khel Ratna awardees in the same year has made sure that Indian boxing has moved swiftly over the last year from the obscure rings to the centrestage and the headlines could get bolder if the cream of India's talent returns from Milan with a first-ever medal from the World Championships.
Pint sized dynamite Suranjoy Singh is the latest sensation in Indian boxing and can take on the best. Suranjoy is the first Indian to win a gold at the Asian Boxing championship in 15 years.
There is Nanao Singh, too, who is the reigning World Youth Champion in 48kg.
There are familiar faces also in the Indian team that will attempt to win a World Championship medal in Milan.
"All the Indian boxers did very well in Olympics and that has given us some recognition… to maintain that we are training very hard. The camp in Patiala was good," says boxer Jitender Singh.
The Indian boxers threatened the world order with a powerhouse display at the Beijing Olympics and ever since then the graph of Indian boxing is on a high.
Olympic bronze medallist Vijender Singh is now ranked second in the world in the 75 kg category and is happy with the way things are shaping up.
"We had not won any medal in boxing till the Beijing Olympics. But now that we have broken that jinx I hope that we will come back with at least two or three medals because our juniors are also doing well and we have seniors doing well too. I hope we will do well this time," says Vijender.
But it won't be easy as the World Championships have seen a unusually high number of entries this time with boxers trying desperately to be noticed by the lucrative World Boxing League.
"The world league is going to take place after this competition. So every body is vying for it. Keeping this in mind I think there has been the maximum number of entries seen in a World Championship. Three are 700 plus entries. So this is going to be a really tough competition. But we have done our job, we have done our bit. We have worked hard and we are ready," says coach GS Sandhu.
Thanks to their exploits in Beijing Indian boxers have a new profile these days. Where ever they go a tournament the expectations are high. But now there is a lot more at stake than juts a first World Championship medal.
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