Nishant Dev had put up a valiant show in his international debut at the 2021 World Championship, one that had earned him plaudits from everyone, but he was disheartened to miss a medal by a whisker. (More Boxing News)
On top of that, he suffered a br✅oken nose and was also🗹 battling acute shoulder pain.
The youngster was, however, determined to prove himself and win a World Championship meda🥃l. He achieved the feat by winning the light middleweight (71kg) 🌺bronze in Tashkent on Friday.
The mꦗedal is a testament to Nishant's never-say-die attitude as the 22-year-old has endured a challenging couple of years to reach here.
&q൩uot;He never showed us that he was sad after losing the World Championship medal last time. He was alw🍌ays positive," Nishant’s father Pawan told PTI.
"He broke his nose at the World Championships and he also had shoulder pain. When he joined the🌠 camp in Patiala the pain increased."
On getting his shoulder checked, Nishant found out that the pa🐎in was due to an old injury. When he was nine years old, Nishant had fallen down the stairs. A rod was inserted into his shoulder at the time. More than 10 years later, the rod had been infected.
"He was in a lot of pain, so he got a surgery done and Nishant had to tak𝕴e rest for over nine months."
Even during his rehabilitation period, ꦬthe young pugilist never let his parents know of the doubts and insecurities that crossed his mind. He quietly worked on his strength, power and conditioning. After just a couple of months of training, he defended his National Champi𓄧onship title earlier this year.
"This period between the two world championships has been very tough on him. But heꦛ never accepted defeat, he always looked at the bright side. He would always say to us ‘I have to recover fast so I can win again’,” said Pawan.
Born in Karnal to a Zamin✨dar father and a homemaker mother, Nishant enjoꦬyed participating in various sports events as a child.
“He used to participate in all the games in school, 100m, 200m and skating. Once he was taking pa🅺rt in a skating competition and one of the wheels of his skatꦫe came off just before the race. But he didn’t care about it and went on to win the race.
“He was never low on confidence, always had clarity of t♊hought. He does whatever it takes to complete his g🌳oal,” recalled Pawan.
Nishant was exposed to boxing at an earlꦅy🦹 age, as his maternal uncle was a professional boxer in Germany. But it was after watching Manoj Kumar win the gold at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi that he decided to seriously pursue boxing.
“His mama (uncle) did professional boxing in Germany. I wanted him to play l✅awn tennis but in 2010 CWG ꩲwhen Manoj Kumar’s gold medal came, he said to us ‘I want to do boxing’.”
Nishant started training at the Karan stad✤ium under coach Surender Chauhan.
“For the training, he was the one who used to wake me up. We would line up at the stadium at 5 am. He would ﷺcome back by 7:30am, have a bath and run for school. And then again after lunch, we would rush for practice.”
At the ongཧoing Worlds, he has put up impressive performance. Nishant has been relentless in his attack which hel🐽ped him upstage 2021 World Championships bronze medallist Sarkhan Aliyev of Azerbaijan in the opening round.
