new delhi ahead of the 2018 commonwealth games one person in particular is putting in the extra yards to ensure a medal that is boxer manoj kumar who will be representing india in the mens 69kg category and spearheading the indian challenge along with another experienced boxer vikas krishan in the absence of shiva thapa and gaurav bidhurialso read pv sindhu suffers injury scare ahead of cwgmanoj will be one of indias brightest prospects from the 13member contingent to return home with a medal and for that the pugilist has been part of the national camp in patiala where he was training under the watchful eyes of chief national coach sr singh and argentinas santiago nieva the highperformance director of the mens and womens teams the haryana boxer recently participated at the strandja memorial tournament in sofia where he lost in the prequarters to moroccos abdelkabir bellassek to overcome his mistakes manoj has been carefully assessing his game by sitting and watching videos of his bouts several timesat the rio olympics manoj put up a spirited show but could not match the power of fifth seed fazliddin gaibnazarov in his prequarterfinal bout and subsequently bowed out manoj doesnt have the best of forms heading into the cwg either besides his quarter final exit at the strandja memorial manoj clinched bronze at the india open boxing tournament which remains his only medal win of latehowever the boxer has been sweating a bucketful at the training sessions to get his body and punches in perfect shape also read know your cwg athlete seema puniathe preparation is on right track i have been working on finetuning my technique especially the attack part my foot movement is now faster which can help me cancel an opponents move as quickly as possible the boxing team will leave early for gold coast to acclimatise to the conditions i will look to better my quarterfinal appearance at the glasgow cwg i am confident of securing a medal this time manoj had told toi earlier this monthindias mens boxing squad for cwg 2018men amit 49kg gaurav solanki 52kg manish kaushik 60kg manoj kumar 69kg hussam mohammed 56kg satish kumar 91kg naman tanwar 91kg vikas krishan 75kg