India’s AIBA World Boxing Championships bronze medallist Gaurav Bidhuri works hard to regain his place in the national team

India’s Gaurav Bidhuri has been training hard to regain his place in the top national team at the featherweight (57kg) which is seriously tough category in his homeland. The 27-year-old Indian boxer was bronze medallist at the Hamburg 2017 AIBA World Boxing Championships and he believes that his hard work will be paid off.

Gaurav Bidhuri was born on May 16 in 1993 and joined to the national team at the age of 16 as a junior talent. His coach is Dharmender Bidhuri since the very beginnings and he was involved to his first international event already in 2009. He was quarter-finalist at the Yerevan 2009 AIBA Junior World Boxing Championships where some of his teammates later Olympians as Shiva Thapa and Sumit Sangwan also impressed.

His first elite international event was the 2011 edition of the Indonesian President’s Cup in Jakarta where Bidhuri claimed bronze medal and lost to only Philippines’ Ian Clark Bautista in the semi-finals of the light flyweight (49kg). He was involved to the World Series of Boxing already in 2012 at the age of 19 and moved ahead in the Indian national ranking step by step claiming medals in the events.

Bidhuri competed at the flyweight (52kg) in the Incheon 2014 Asian Games where he reached the quarter-finals. He won three fights at the Season V of the World Series of Boxing in 2015 and attended three different qualification events for the Rio 2016 Olympics but he was not able to qualify for the Games.

Following these efforts, he moved up one weight class and reached the quarter-final of the Tashkent 2017 ASBC Asian Boxing Championships. Bidhuri secured his best ever result at the Hamburg 2017 AIBA World Boxing Championships where he claimed India’s lone medal, a bronze in Germany. Since then his national rivals developed well and Bidhuri was not able to repeat that result which he achieved in Hamburg three years ago.

India earned nine quota places for the Tokyo Olympic Games through the Asian & Oceanian Olympic Boxing Qualifying Event but his category the featherweight (57kg) is still vacant. Bidhuri works hard to reach his previous level and prepares to the next battles.

Bidhuri’s weight class is seriously crowded with top international boxers in India, his job is not so easy to regain his place. Commonwealth Games winner Gaurav Solanki, Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Mohamed Hussamuddin, AIBA Youth World Champion Sachin Siwach Singh and ASBC Asian Boxing Championships silver medallist Kavinder Singh Bisht are all ahead of him in the Indian national ranking.

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