Union Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju on Monday met boxers Amit Panghal and Manish Kaushik, who won a medal each at the World Boxing Championships in Russia, and handed over cheques to them for their performance at the tournament.
Panghal became the first Indian boxer to bag a silver medal at the championships while Kaushik clinched a bronze.
Rijiju handed over cheques of Rs 14 lakh and Rs 8 lakh to Panghal and Kaushik respectively.
The minister said this was India's best performance at the tournament.
"I am extremely delighted that India has performed their best-ever in the world championships. We won two medals this time. Panghal bagged a silver and Kaushik got a bronze medal. This has given a lot of confidence to us that we can perform even better and we have the depth in boxing in India both men and women," Rijiju told ANI.
"I am very hopeful that our boxing team will do exceedingly well and they are preparing for their Olympics qualification. I personally met the boxers and gave them cash awards and also told them that any assistance required, be it technical support, financial, coaching, we will provide everything. We will do whatever is necessary and athletes are our priority," he added.
Panghal settled for a silver medal in the championships as he lost the final match to Uzbekistan's Shakhobidin Zoirov.
"I am very happy but I would have been happier if I had won gold. I do not want to get satisfied and will do more hard work," Panghal said.
Kaushik said he felt encouraged after being honoured by the sports minister.
"It feels good that the sports minister has honoured us and with this, we got encouragement to do even better," he added.
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