Hussamuddin clinches bronze in 57kg category at World Boxing Championships, gives walkover in semifinals

India’s Mohammed Hussamuddin finished his IBA World Boxing Championships campaign in Tashkent, Uzbekistan with a bronze medal on Friday.

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Hussamuddin was forced to give a walkover to Horta Rodriguez Del-Rey of Cuba in the 54-57kg semifinals due to a knee injury sustained during his quarterfinal bout, the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) said in a tweet.

Commonwealth Games champion Hussamuddin had upset fifth-seeded Bulgarian Javier Ibanez Diaz 4-3, via bout review, in a closely-contested fight in the quarterfinals.

Against a taller opponent landing blows from a long range, the Indian southpaw connected a few headshots to claim the first round 3-2.

Hussamuddim relied on his ring craft to stay marginally ahead in the second period and matched the Bulgarian in the physical third round, which witnessed both going all out, to emerge triumphant.

The Haryana boxer defeated Russia’s Eduard Savvin in the pre-quarters.

Mohammed Hussamuddin’s background

Hailing from a family of boxers, Mohammed Hussamuddin is the youngest of six brothers, four of whom are seriously entrenched in the sport. Hussamuddin, whose role model is Vasyl Lomachenko, two-time Olympic Champion, was afraid to don the gloves until his father and coach, Mohammad Shamsuddin, got him to shed that fear and trained him at the Collectorate grounds in Nizamabad, north Telangana.

The 29-year-old went on to outshine his siblings and established himself in the state-level competitions before moving on to the national scene, making his debut in the 2009 junior Nationals at Aurangabad, claiming bronze. He turned it into gold in his debut at the senior nationals.

The boxer’s potential was spotted early and in 2011, he was sent to a fortnight-long stint of training and competition to Havana, Cuba, before participating in the 2012 Tammer Tournament in Finland and later in the Youth World Championship in Yerevan, Armenia.

His barren-run on the international stage ended with bronze at the 2015 Military World Games. Since then, he has been on the up and today he has evolved into one of the finest boxers in the country in his weight category.

With a bronze in Commonwealth Games 2018 and a gold in the Chemistry Cup, Hussamuddin continued to shine and bag silver at the Gee Bee Boxing Tournament in 2019. He won silver at the Boxam International in march 2021 and finished 2022 with bronze medal at CWG and Asian Championships.