Wildcard entrant Gaurav Bidhuri's remarkable run at the World Boxing Championships ended with a bronze medal after he lost his semi-final clash to America's Duke Ragan in Hamburg on Thursday.
Despite the loss, the 24-year-old a rare club of World Championships medallists from India -- the only other male winners being Vijender, Vikas and Shiva in 2009, 2011 and 2015 respectively.
In a bout fought primarily on defensive tactics, the 20-year-old American had a slight edge in the opening three minutes. Although both the boxers spent the better part of it waiting for the other to make the first attack, Ragan seemed more in control lunging forward.
Gaurav did well to connect on counter-attack, but the lack of attack from his side made the difference in the final outcome.
The second round was fought on a more even keel and Gaurav managed to surprise his rival by cornering him on more than one occasion. Both boxers were defensive in the final round but Ragan broke free with his cleanly-struck right hooks to clinch the bout.
Ragan will now face England's Peter McGrail in the final on Saturday.
Earlier, Amit Phangal (49kg) and Kavinder Bisht (56kg) had bowed out in the quarterfinal stage.
Originally, Gaurav hadn't even qualified for the tournament to start with. Ousted in the Asian Championships quarterfinal stage, Gaurav had also gone on to lose the box-off for a World Championships spot. He was, later on, handed a wildcard by the Asian Boxing Confederation (ASBC) that was originally meant for Bhutan, after the country declined the offer.
He had previously defeated Ukraine's Mykola Butsenko, a two-time European Championships' silver-medallist and 2013 World Championships bronze medallist in his pre-quarterfinal bout and Tunisia's Bilel Mhamdi in the quarterfinals to assure himself of a medal.