Asian Championships: Shiva Thapa’s knee and gold medal hopes take a hit

New Delhi, November 12

Shiva Thapa’s campaign at boxing’s Asian Championships came to a bittersweet end after he was forced to withdraw from the 63.5kg final midway due to an injury, finishing with an unprecedented sixth medal, a silver, in Amman today.

The 28-year-old Thapa, who has become the most successful male boxer in the tournament, sustained an injury in his right knee in the opening seconds of the second round of the light-welterweight gold medal bout against Abdullaev Ruslan of Uzbekistan.

Thapa, seeded third, was trailing when the injury occurred and had to bow out with an RSC (Referee stops the contest) verdict. He had lost the fast-paced opening round 0-5.

His haul from the tournament now includes a gold (2013), three silver (2017, 2021 and 2022) and two bronze medal (2015 and 2019).

With today’s silver, Thapa overtook Kazakh legend Vassiliy Levit, an Olympics silver medallist and two-time World Championships bronze medallist, who won five Asian Championships medals.

Among the women, MC Mary Kom (7) and L Sarita Devi (8) have more Asian Championships medals than Thapa. Sarita had claimed six successive medals, five of them gold, when she was at the peak of her career.