Nishant Dev (Boxer)

Some Lesser Known Facts About Nishant Dev

• He has participated in various sports including 100m and 200m races and skating. He is a national-level skater.

• In an interview, his father recalled Nishant winning a skate racing competition even after a wheel of his skate broke.

• In 2010, he dislocated his shoulder after falling from stairs.

• He was inspired by the Indian boxer, Manoj Kumar, who won the gold medal in the Commonwealth Games, held in New Delhi in 2010.

• He was also inspired by his maternal uncle who had participated in professional boxing in Germany and started boxing seriously in 2012.

• He has trained in the Karan Stadium, Karnal, under his coach, Surender Chauhan.

• His father would wake him up at 4 a.m. daily and take him to train in the morning and evening.

• He joined the Inspire Institute of Sport (IIS), Vijayanagar, Karnataka in 2016.

  

• He represents Karnataka in the National games.

• His performance in the 4th Elite Men’s National Boxing Championship held in Badi, Himachal Pradesh in 2019 impressed the high-performance director for India’s male boxers, Santiago Nieva and he got the invitation to join the Indian camp.

• In 2021, he reached the quarter-finals in his debut international tournament at the AIBA Men’s World Boxing Championships in Serbia. In the tournament, he defeated nine-time Hungarian national champion, Laszlo Kozak, and two-time Olympian, Merven Clair of Mauritius.

• In 2021, he broke his nose during a boxing match.

• In 2022, when he was preparing for the Asian Games, his shoulder started to hurt and he had to take 5 to 6 painkillers in a day.

• Later, after getting an MRI, it was found that the bone marrow of his dislocated shoulder had become infected.

• On 31 March 2022, he had to undergo surgery and had to take complete rest for 6 months. The surgery caused him to miss the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Championships.

• He slowly began to shadowbox and punch water bags on 25 October as part of his recovery.

• He went back to Inspire Institute of Sport, Karnataka, in November and started to train slowly. He also worked on losing weight that he had gained post-surgery.

• He appeared for the state trials in Karnataka and for Nationals in Hisar in December 2022.

• In an interview, he talked about the impact of his injury on his career and the motivation he received from his family, and said,
  

  I lost several tournaments because of the injury. But I was confident that I can do it as my boxing skills and mindset are different. My family motivated me and kept me positive. When I did rehab at the IIS for six months, I worked on my shoulder. It improved my strength.”

• He defeated Jorge Cuellar at the Mens World Championships in 2023 and became the first Indian boxer to defeat a Cuban boxer.

• On 31 May 2024, he won the quota for the Paris Olympics 2024 after reaching the semi-finals in the Boxing Olympic qualifiers.

  

• He is a fitness enthusiast and enjoys working out in the gym.