Who is Nishant Dev, the first Indian male boxer to qualify for Paris Olympics?
Nishant Dev booked his spot for Paris Olympics after beating Moldova’s Vasile Cebotari 5-0 in the men’s 71kg quarterfinals at the World Boxing Qualifiers in Bangkok on Friday.
He is the fourth Indian pugilist to qualify for the Summer Games in the French capital after Nikhat Zareen (women’s 50kg), Preeti Pawar (women’s 54kg) and Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist Lovlina Borgohain (women’s 75kg).
The 23-year-old Nishant is a World Championships bronze medallist from the 2023 edition of the event held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. His performance in that competition included a famous 5-0 win over Cuba’s Jorge Cuellar in the quarterfinals.
He burst onto the scene when he reached the quarterfinals of the Elite World Boxing Championship in 2021 in his debut International tournament.
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Hailing from Haryana’s Karnal district, Nishant started boxing in 2012, after getting inspired by his uncle who was a professional boxer. He used to train at Karan stadium under coach Surender Chauhan. Nishant’s father would wake him up at 4am and accompany him to training and do the same in the evening to ensure his son was coached well.
Representing Karnataka, he lost in the quarterfinals at his first Senior National Championships in Baddi in 2019, but impressed the then high-performance director of Indian boxing Santiago Nieva and joined the Indian camp to learn from the best in the business.
In 2021, he won gold at the National Championships and went on to represent India at the World Championships. It was the first International tournament of his career as before that, he had not even competed at Junior or Youth level internationally. He impressed everyone with his fearless boxing as he played without any pressure. He defeated Hungary’s nine-time National Champion Laszlo Kozak in the first round before outclassing two-time Olympian Merven Clair of Mauritius in the second round. High on confidence after defeating two big names, he went on to win against Mexico’s Marco Alvarez Verde before bowing out in the quarter-finals.
Nishant dislocated his right shoulder in 2010 after falling down the stairs. This old injury came back to haunt him at the beginning of 2022 as the rod that was put in his shoulder in 2010 got infected. He underwent surgery in March and was in rehab for most of the year. During his rehabilitation period, he had a lot of doubts and insecurities regarding his comeback but working on his strength, power and conditioning. Despite limited training, he came back strong to retain his title at the National Boxing Championships in Hisar in January 2023.
Nishant had come close to clinching the quota for Paris Olympics during the first World Boxing Qualifiers Busto Arsizio, Italy in March this year where he lost 1-4 to USA’s Omari Jones in the quarterfinals.