Akhil Kumar was the bantamweight from Haryana who won Commonwealth Games gold in Melbourne in 2006 and then, two years later in Beijing, beat the reigning world champion on his way to the Olympic quarter-finals. With his low guard and taunting style, he was one of the boxers who made Indian amateur boxing worth watching in the late 2000s.
Name: Akhil Kumar Born: 27 March 1981, Bhiwani district, Haryana | Sport: Boxing | Event: Bantamweight (54 kg)
Bhiwani roots
Akhil was born in Bhiwani district, long known as a nursery for Indian boxers. He came through the national system in the bantamweight class and went on to serve with the Haryana Police, where he holds the rank of deputy superintendent of police.
Athens 2004
His first Olympic chance came through the 1st AIBA Asian Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Guangzhou in 2004, where he finished second to book a place in Athens. The draw was unkind. In the first round he met Jerome Thomas of France, an established international, and lost. It was a short first Olympics, but it gave him a measure of the level he would need to reach.
Commonwealth gold in Melbourne
The following years were his best. In 2005 he won gold at the Commonwealth Federation Boxing Championships in Glasgow, and he received the Arjuna Award the same year. At the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne he edged past Nestor Bolum of Nigeria before beating Bruno Julie of Mauritius in the 54 kg final to take gold.
In 2007 he added bronze at the Asian Championships in Ulan Bator. He was named best boxer at national level three times.
Beijing 2008 and the Vodopyanov upset
Beijing gave Akhil the bout people still talk about. He opened with a 12-5 win over Ali Hallab of France to reach the second round. There he faced Sergey Vodopyanov of Russia, the reigning world champion and the favourite in the class.
Vodopyanov had won the world title in Chicago the year before. Akhil was 6-2 down in the second round, but kept his composure and came back to win the bout, sending home the man many expected to take gold. For an Indian boxer to beat a reigning world champion at an Olympics was rare enough to make the result big news at home. His coach at the Games was Gurbaksh Singh Sandhu, the long-serving national coach who also guided Vijender Singh to India’s first Olympic boxing medal in Beijing.
The run ended in the quarter-finals on 18 August 2008, when Veaceslav Gojan of Moldova beat him 10-3. Akhil, Vijender and Jitender Kumar all reached the last eight in Beijing, and Vijender went one step further to win bronze in the middleweight class. Later that year Akhil won bronze at the AIBA World Cup in Moscow.
Style and standing
Akhil’s style was unusual for an amateur. He fought with his hands low, leaned away from punches and liked to counter, and he enjoyed playing to the crowd. It made him popular with spectators and gave Indian boxing a personality at a time when the sport was beginning to attract more attention at home.
Turning professional
In 2017, along with fellow Beijing Olympian Jitender Kumar, Akhil signed with IOS Boxing Promotions to box professionally. His first professional fight came in August 2017, when he stopped Australia’s Ty Gilchrist on a technical knockout in the junior welterweight division. He was 36 at the time, an age at which most amateur boxers have already stopped, and the switch gave him a few more years in the ring.
Career record and honours
- Commonwealth Games: gold, Melbourne 2006 (54 kg)
- Olympic Games: first round, Athens 2004; quarter-finalist, Beijing 2008 (54 kg), including a win over world champion Sergey Vodopyanov
- Commonwealth Federation Boxing Championships: gold, Glasgow 2005
- Asian Championships: bronze, Ulan Bator 2007
- AIBA World Cup: bronze, Moscow 2008
- Asian Olympic Qualifying Tournament: silver, Guangzhou 2004
- Professional debut: TKO win over Ty Gilchrist, August 2017
- Arjuna Award (2005)
- Haryana Police: deputy superintendent of police