Sagar Ahlawat won silver in his maiden international competition, after losing to Delicious Orie of England in the final of the men's +92kg boxing division. India's boxing contingent thus finished with seven medals (three gold, one silver and three bronze) at CWG 2022
Delicious started on the aggressive, with Sagar on the backfoot with his guard up, and shuffling away. The Indian boxer landed a couple of counter-punches with an uppercut. and then ramped up his aggression. Delicious kept himself in the game, landing his fair share of punches, but the judges ruled 5-0 in favour of Sagar.
Sagar's coach advised him to avoid hooks and go for straight jabs in the break, but the 22-yr-old went in early for a left hook in the second round, missing completely and getting hit with a counter-punch from Delicious. The two boxers fought from close range, with Sagar looking dazed and a bit tired after Delicious connected with some jabs and a heavy right hook to his face. The second round was awarded to Delicious 5-0, but the overall game was tied.
Delicious remained aggressive at the start of the third round, while also being able to avoid Sagar's jabs. The Indian recovered a bit in the third round with a few straight jabs to Delicious' face, but then received a bad cut to his left eyebrow, bleeding profusely. Opting mostly for body blows, Sagar's punches were a bit wild as he looked visibly tired, with Delicious landing multiple uppercuts.
The bell rang to end the bout and the judges ruled unanimously in favour of Delicious, awarding him the gold with a 5-0 scoreline.
Earlier, Sagar started his CWG campaign by defeating former Olympian Maxme Njieyo of Cameroon by a 5-0 unanimous verdict in his opening round. He had it easy in the quarters as he landed powerful blows on Seychelles' Keddy Evans Agnes to make the semifinals with an identical scoreline. Ifeanyi Onyekwere of Nigeria was next up in the semifinal, and Sagar displayed impressive form to win 5-0 once more.
The 22-year-old, who began boxing only five years ago, is a son of a farmer in Dhandlan village of Jhajjar district in Haryana. "We have just two acres of land and I used to spend the whole day farming with my father. There was a lot of struggle and I had to join boxing to change our fortunes," he said after his semifinal win.