No time to celebrate, Shiva aims for World C'ships

He is smiling ear to ear after becoming the youngest Indian boxer to strike gold at the Asian Boxing Championships, but teen sensation Shiva Thapa hardly has any time to rest on the laurels as he has already set his sights on the World Championships to be held in October.
Besides Shiva's (56kg) gold, L Devendro Singh (49kg) and Mandeep Jangra (69kg) fetched silver medals while Manoj Kumar (64kg) settled for a bronze as the team finished joint second in the overall standings.
The team returned to the country from Amman, Jordan in the wee hours today and was all spunk and energy despite being jet-lagged.

"Where is the time to celebrate and all, I will just take a short trip to home for 3-4 days and head straight back to Patiala (national camp) to prepare for the World Championships," said the Assam-lad.
"Celebrations can happen later, now is the time to just focus and train as hard as we can because a World Championships medal is something else altogether," added the 19-year-old, who is being managed by Anglian Medal Hunt.
The World Championships are scheduled from October 11 to 27 in Alamty, Kazakhstan and the trials for picking the Indian team for it would be conducted next month in Patiala.

National coach Gurbax Singh Sandhu was also praise not just for those who won medals but also for others in the team.

"None of my boys disappointed me. It's a performance that I as a coach is very proud of and extremely satisfied as well," said the long-serving coach.
Shiva said the Asian Championships provided valuable exposure to the new scoring system, under which there are no live updates anymore.
"At this event, we realised that it is all about making the first impression because if the judges get a feeling that the boxer is not attacking enough, it is extremely difficult to make a comeback," he said.

"If you lose the first round even by a point, it is very tough to win the next two. So, it is important that you attack in every round," added his Manipuri roommate Devendro.