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Akhil Kumar, who lost in the Olympic boxing quarterfinals, has a crucial lesson to learn from the success of his teammate

After losing his quarter-final bout with Moldova's Gojan Veaceslav, as he slowly walked back to his corner, sweat streaming down his arms, Akhil Kumar had a smile on his face. A smile that said it all. He had lost, yes, but was by no means defeated.

It was reported that his family and friends were shocked by the result. How often do you hear of people getting 'shocked' by an Indian's defeat at the Olympics? But that is the effect of the spell cast by Akhil's boxing. It led me to compare him, in my last column, to Muhammad Ali, no less. His defeat came as a bitter dose of reality for his legions of fans, myself included, who had been hypnotised by his style and skill.

So, is Akhil only an average boxer, as many now hold? Was his victory over the reigning world champion, Sergey Vodopyanov, a fluke? Is his teammate Vijender Kumar, who has become India's first boxer to win an Olympic medal, a better boxer than Akhil? What exactly went wrong?

When I had 'gone gaga' over Akhil, I had identified four qualities that, to me, indicated that he was champion material: "Attitude, power, grit and technique…he has everything it takes to make a champion", were my exact words. Now, anyone who has seen Akhil's three bouts can vouch for all of these: His attitude was never in question; against Ali Hallab, he mesmerised us with his technique, especially his footwork and dodges; against Vodopyanov, he showed that he had the grit and power to come back from behind and rock the world champion. And yet, against Gojan, he foundered. I wasn't mistaken about him possessing these qualities. Where I went wrong was in assuming that they constitute "everything" that makes a champion. They don't. There are two qualities that are perhaps more important than even sheer talent: A cool head, and patience.

When things are going your way, and you are in control, it is easy to look like a champion. Sania Mirza can look like a champion if she plays a set against Priyanka Chopra who, I am told, is a good tennis player. For Akhil, everything went according to plan in his first round bout against Hallab. And he came away looking like a champ. In the pre-quarters, he was fighting the world champion, and he had nothing to lose. Not unexpectedly, midway through the fight, he fell behind on points against the aggressive Russian. Akhil came out all guns blazing, and it worked for him.

This victory, and the media adulation that followed, may or may not have gone to his head. Many hold the view that, against the 'unheralded' Moldovan, Akhil felt the pressure of performing like a 'champ' and thus lost focus under the blinding glare of media attention. I think the problem is deeper.

When you are competing at the highest level, very often, your toughest opponent is not the one you are playing so much as your own self. Tennis star Goran Ivanisevic is a great case study. In terms of sheer talent, Ivanisevic ought to have won at least a couple more Wimbledons than he did. But he lost three Wimbledon finals (two of those in five sets) - in 1992, 1994, and 1998. All these losses were in the years when, physically, he must have been in his prime. In fact, his highest career ranking (world #2) was in 1994. Clearly, the problem was more in his head than in his game, and of course, the entire world knew that this was the case. Sports writers routinely referred to him as an 'enigma'. You don't make it to the Wimbledon final three times unless you are champion material.

Yet what is truly inspiring is that Ivanisevic did overcome his demons. It took him his entire career to do that, but he did it. In 2001, at the age of 30, he entered the Wimbledon draw as a wild card. And he won the championship. Till date, he is the only wild card to have won the men's singles title at Wimbledon.

Similarly, Akhil Kumar's loss to Gojan is no reflection on his skills as a boxer. Remember, at the end of the first two rounds, they were level at 2-2. Akhil's entire game plan hinged on building up an early lead and using that advantage to control the fight. But in the first round, many of his punches weren't scored by the judges - something his Cuban coach BI Fernandes was livid about, but which Akhil himself, to his credit, never even mentioned in his post-match press conference. Boxing is a sport notorious for dodgy refereeing, especially in the Olympics, and you need to take it in your stride.

After two rounds, Akhil found that things weren't going to plan. He wasn't ahead on points, and the Moldovan had simply downed the shutters, so to speak. His arms were glued to his face, and he might as well have wrapped his head in lead. None of the Indian's provocative tactics worked. Clearly, Gojan had done his homework and there was no way he was going to deviate from his plan.

At this stage, seeing that nothing was working, had he reacted like a true champion, Akhil would have stuck to the fundamentals of his game, his core strength: counter-punching. He would have floated around, played the waiting game, and made the Moldovan come to him. But inexplicably, he abandoned his natural game and started boxing like a puncher. Perhaps the pressure of suddenly being the medal hope of one billion losers back home got to him. He went all out against Gojan, who, smartly, began to play Akhil's game, counter-punching at will and rapidly accumulating points. In what must seem a cruel twist of irony, the last round between Gojan and Akhil was a replay of the last round between Akhil and Hallab, with
Akhil taking on the role of the losing Frenchman and chasing Gojan around the ring in desperation.

When patience and a cool head would have kept him in the match, Akhil became impatient, and panicked. The more he fell behind on points, the more he attacked; the more he attacked, the more he ended up opening up his own defences, and the easier it became for the Moldovan to connect, and score. It was a sad downward spiral that Akhil had got into, and there was little time to think or recover. It was all over before he could understand what was happening, and Akhil's Olympic dreams lay in tatters. To have come so near to a medal, and lost to an opponent he clearly would have beaten on another
day, must be very hard to digest.

But he showed character. He didn't bawl in public, unlike the world champion whom he beat in the pre-quarters. Akhil's smile at the end of this bout was the saddest I have ever seen on a sportsman's face. And he didn't run and hide, like some Indian cricket captains have done after a defeat - he went straight to the journalists who were waiting for him, and took their shots on the chin. His last words at the press conference were, "Please don't forget me."

Don't worry, Akhil, you won't be forgotten. Not because public memory isn't short - it is - but because you are too talented not to bounce back. It is not for nothing that the other two Indian boxers who made it to the quarterfinals - Jitender and Vijender - idolise him.

Still, Akhil needs to learn from his junior teammate Vijender. Despite being India's last medal hope in boxing following Jitender Kumar's defeat earlier in the day, Vijender displayed nerves of ice in his quarter-final against Ecuador's Carlos Gongora. He fought a slow, steady fight. He is not half as exciting to watch as Akhil, but he has the qualities that Akhil needs to imbibe: a cool head, and patience. Vijender lived up to his promise by reaching the semi-finals, where he was
clearly outclassed by the Cuban boxer, Emilio Correa Bayeux.

However, what is most revealing is the fact that while Vijender lost to a higher-ranked opponent, Akhil beat his higher-ranked adversary, and lost to a boxer he was expected to beat. This just goes to show that, when two competitors are more or less evenly matched in ability, the decisive battle is won or lost in the mind. It is quite unfair to compare the two, but pound for pound, in terms of skill, Akhil, in my book, is a couple of notches above Vijender. The latter has done as well as he could by winning the bronze, but the former had the potential to win the gold and didn't.

Akhil fights with a lot of passion. Unfortunately, the Olympics are merciless when it comes to even the tiniest mistake. In eight minutes of fighting time, you get little chance to recover, and passion cannot help you if your opponent clamps down and practically squats in the ring, as Gojan did. Akhil provokes his opponents and wins when they lose their cool. But at the moment, his similarity with Muhammad Ali ends right there. Ali follows similar tactics, but he was a pretty cool and patient customer himself. His legendary Rumble in the Jungle bout against George Foreman is a hard lesson on the virtue of patience in boxing. If Akhil wants to emulate Ali by winning the Olympic gold, four years from now, he must learn to keep his head when things aren't going his way.

Having said that, reaching the quarterfinals of the Olympics is no mean achievement. And to catch the imagination of a nation of arm-chair athletes who, to begin with, weren't expecting even this much, is an even bigger accomplishment. Ivanisevic won his first Wimbledon at 30. And Akhil is only 27. Speaking to reporters after his unexpected loss, he had said, "Harney ka dum rakhna chahiye. Aakhir main boxer hoon." (I should have the stomach for a defeat. After all I am a boxer). Courageous words. They also give a clue as to why the Indian captain is a role model for boxers across the country, not just for Vijender. Make no mistake, Akhil will be back.

sampath@dnaindia.net