- Gaurav Bidhuri will fight his bantamweight (56kg) semi-final bout against American Duke Ragan at 10:30 pm IST (tentative) in Hamburg on Thursday.
- If Bidhuri wins, he will become the first Indian boxer to enter the final of the World Boxing Championships.
- Live streaming of the match will be available on the AIBA Facebook Page.
Confidence bruised by near-misses and a nagging back injury – this is what India’s Gaurav Bidhuri carried into the World Boxing Championships in Hamburg, 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. I asked everyone and only after each one of them said that I have made it, I finally eased up a bit.Gaurav Bidhuri
The Delhi boxer has never been among the most talked about in the Indian circuit, and has been prone to making quarter-final exits in almost every tournament he was picked for.
The most recent of these quarter-final exits took place in the Asian Championships in Tashkent earlier in 2017, where he missed the chance twice to qualify directly for the world showpiece.
I have nearly always lost in the quarter-final stage of every tournament that I have competed in. Here also, once I reached quarters, I was having these negative thoughts that ‘maybe, the same thing will happen again, I will lose, that I am not good enough’. But then another part of me was also telling me to break this jinx.Gaurav Bidhuri
Asked how he steeled up for competing despite his seemingly volatile mind, Gaurav conceded it wasn't easy to shake off negativity.
It is the toughest part of being an athlete, 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.Gaurav Bidhuri
And now, Gaurav might become the first Indian boxer to win a medal better than bronze at the prestigious championships, should he go on to win his semi-final on Thursday.
I have been battling a lot of injuries but did not care about them. I have had severe back problems for the last seven-eight months but I did not care about that and have been training relentlessly and finally, I have won a medal.Gaurav Bidhuri
Gaurav will fight his bantamweight (56kg) semi-final bout against American Duke Ragan.
By advancing to the last-four stage, he joined Vijender Singh (2009), Vikas Krishan (2011) and Shiva Thapa (2015) in a select band of Indian boxers to have finished on the podium at the biennial mega-event.
Bidhuri had won a gold medal at an invitational tournament in the Czech Republic in July, but was still a long way off from being even considered a top medal contender in the World Championships.
However, his pre-quarterfinal win over Ukraine's Mykola Butsenko, a two-time European Championships' silver-medallist and 2013 World Championships bronze-winner, brought him into focus.
He is ready to fight pain as he would like to add a different colour to his medal.
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 it’s all worth it now.Gaurav Bidhuri
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.Gaurav Bidhuri
(With inputs from PTI)
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