India’s heaviest boxer at the Tokyo Olympics, Satish Kumar (+91kg) on Thursday advanced to the quarterfinals of the men’s super heavyweight event. He defeated Jamaica’s Ricardo Brown in his debut bout in the multi-sport events, prevailing 4-1 on a split verdict. Kumar will face Uzbekistan’s Bakhodir Jalolov, the reigning world and Asian champion on August 1. He is just one win away from confirming India’s second medal of the 2020 Olympics.

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Who is Satish Kumar?

Hailing from Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, Satish Kumar is the first Super Heavyweight boxer to have qualified for the Olympics from India. The 2018 Arjuna awardee was born to a farmer and joined the army as a Sepoy and moved to Ranikhet. There, he was urged to start boxing. He was coached by Gurbaksh Singh Sandhu at the SSCB boxing club.

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One year later, Kumar won his first boxing medal in his maiden appearance at the Senior National Championships in Chennai. The 32-year-od went on to win a bronze medal at the 2014 Asian Games at Incheon in the super heavyweight category.

Satish Kumar would have made his Olympic debut at Rio 2016, but a deep gash in his eyebrow kept him away. 

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Satish, also a 2018 Commonwealth Games silver-medallist, dominated with his right hand and allowed Brown to repeatedly make the mistake of lunging in with very little balance.

Brown seemed to be looking for that one big punch that could unsettle the Indian but failed miserably, owing to his inability to move quickly enough.

The Indian, in comparison, was light on his feet and thereby sharper in responding to Brown’s attacks.