Sri Lanka’s leading light flyweight (49kg) pugilist Sajeewa Nuwan Kumara of the Army lived up to his promise to deliver on the international stage by winning a bronze medal at the 58th World Military Boxing Championships in Russia. Armed with sound technique, the 29-year-old Lance Corporal has been almost unbeatable at home but has been found wanting against international opposition even failing to win a medal at the 2019 South Asian Games in Kathmandu. However, the two-time national champion who has carried away the Best Boxer awards in all three major local meets – Layton Cup, Clifford Cup and the Nationals – in the recent past, dispelled any doubts that he lacked the temperament to perform on the big stage when he fought the fight of his life to beat Mozambique’s Yassine Nordine Issufo in the quarter-final.
Sajeewa Nuwan dominated the opening round out-boxing and outscoring the southpaw and displaying quicksilver footwork to slip away when his opponent attacked. However, he changed tactics in the next two rounds fighting toe-to-toe and aggressively with tenacity against his tough adversary. It turned out to be a scrappy affair with the referee having to break them from clinching often. Nonetheless, the Sri Lankan soldier landed enough scoring blows especially solid rights to earn a split decision. Sajeewa lost to Leanderso Conceicao Siqueira of Brazil in the semifinals.
Army’s Ishan Bandara who has displayed indifferent form since winning a bronze medal at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, showed that he is not a spent force when he advanced to the quarter-finals in the flyweight (52kg) category defeating Pakistan’s Muhammad Dawood with the bout being stopped in the third round because of an injury. Up against a southpaw Damir Abdikadir from Kazakhstan who stopped Aliaksandr Butrym of Belarus, Bandara gave another good account of himself though the volume of punches he threw were less. The Kazak fighter craftily maintained his distance to outbox Bandara who attempted to stun his opponent with solid rights. Bandara did finish strongly being on target in the final round but it was too little too late, missing out on standing in the podium.
Sri Lanka was also assured of another bronze medal when Gayani Nisansala Kaluarachchilage lost in the semi-finals of the Middleweight (75kg) category to Viktoriya Kebikava of Belarus. The rest of the 15-member strong Sri Lanka team was eliminated in the preliminaries with leading woman pugilist Sajeewani Cooray failing to go the distance against France’s Lorye Ruyer in the lightweight (57kg) contest.
Flyweight boxer Sanduni Priyadarshani Hanwellage was outpointed by world champion Ekaterina Paltseva of Russia while Barbara dos Santos from Brazil had a fast victory over Weerakoon Kashmi Thiwanka in the first round of the 69kg contest. The other Sri Lankan boxers lost unanimous decisions to fighters from Jordan, Kazakhstan and Iran.
Boxing Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) president Dian Gomes was buoyed by the medal-winning effort of Sajeewa Nuwan. “We have three bronze medals in the recent past. Nadeeka Ranasinghe at the Asian Championships in Dubai and Sajeewa Nuwan Kumara and Gayani Kaluarachchi at the World Military Championship, proving yet again that boxing has the potential to win medals in the International arena,” said Gomes.