Incheon: Indian pugilist Satish Kumar won a bronze in the Super Heavyweight (+91 kg) category to give India its 51st medal on the penultimate day of the 17th Asian Games in Incheon, here on Thursday.
Satish was comprehensively outboxed by Kazakhstan giant Ivan Dychko in the semi-finals with a clear 3-0 verdict in all the rounds.
Satish was no match for the huge 6ft 9 inch Kazakh, who is a London Olympics bronze medallist as well as a silver medallist at the Guangzhou edition, four years back.
The Kazakh, who was at least half a head taller than Satish, who is no mean unit at 6 ft 2 inch, boxed stylishly and used his superior reach to punch from a distance. Satish found it difficult to land his jabs and hooks as Dychko would easily evade his Indian opponent with swift footwork.
Dychko used his left jab to the Indian's face to score points in each round and once rocked the Bulandshahar lad with a straight punch followed by a nice right-left combination.
"He had a great height advantage and I could not go near him. He is an Olympic Games medalist and I had also lost to him in the last World Championship. My coach thinks I fought better today than in the worlds. I am happy to become the first Asian Games medalist from UP in boxing," said Satish after the bout.
Satish's exit on the penultimate day of boxing has left lone Indian Vikas Krishan (75kg) in the fray. Having clinched a bronze medal already, Vikas will be trying to repeat his gold medal feat, he achieved during the Guangzhou edition in 2010.
The boxers came here aiming to match or better their fine show in 2010 (2 gold, 3 silver and 4 bronze) but will return home with only five medals. So far we have been got one gold courtesy legendary MC Mary Kom and three bronze medals with Vikas' bout still left.
