New Delhi, Aug. 1 -- Jadumani Singh Mandengbam remembers the day he decidedly switched from football to boxing. Competing in a district-level tournament in Imphal in 2016, with former world champions Sarita Devi and MC Mary Kom watching, the then 14-year-old Neymar fan, weighing only 28kg, won the 36kg division, and as a reward received Rs.500 each from Sarita and Mary. Nine years on, while football continues to be his first love and Neymar his hero, Jadumani's boxing career is taking the shape he once dreamt of. The 21-year-old from Manipur's Iroishemba village will represent India in his first senior World Championships at Liverpool. It follows his senior national title won earlier this year and a bronze medal at the World Boxing Cup in Foz do Iguacu, Brazil where he beat England's 2024 World Boxing Cup Finals silver medallist Ellis Trowbridge in the quarter-final. His semi-final ended in a narrow loss to Uzbekistan's Asian U-22 champion, Asilbek Jalilov, but Jadumani returned a more aware boxer. "That tournament told me a lot about my game. At the elite level, you can't wait for the opponent to strike first and then launch your attacks. You ought to impose yourself from the first round itself," he said. Jadumani boxed with that attacking strategy in the second leg of World Boxing Cup in Astana, Kazakhstan but lost a close quarter-final to eventual silver medallist from The Philippines, Jay Bryan Baricuatro. "I think I should have won that bout 5-0 or 4-1...I was not happy with the judging, but I will channel my frustration at the Worlds," he said. The Worlds in September will be India's first major boxing tournament since the Paris Olympics from where the six-member Indian squad returned medalless. Indian boxing itself is undergoing a churn with the sport being run by an interim panel. The change is evident in Jadumani's division too with two former world medallists - Amit Panghal (2019) and Deepak Bhoria (2023) - currently out of favour. "I am ready to take the mantle from them. I have learned a lot from them, especially from Amit with whom I have sparred a lot," he said. The 11 Gorkha Rifles havaldar walked the talk after topping the weeklong assessment in NIS, Patiala in early July where he topped the five-boxer group on all key parameters - weight management, gym performance, running and sparring. "We did three 800m runs in the assessment period and I clocked 2 minutes 15 seconds. I think that was at least 10 seconds better than the next-placed boxer. Similarly, my bench press averaged 74kg while the next best was around 70kgs," he said. Jadumani's foray into boxing happened in 2016 when the football crazy kid grew tired of waiting for his chance. His elder cousins were regularly picked to play over him at their local EYGC Club, and his uncle suggested that Jadumani pick an individual sport. Three months into training at a local academy, about 40km from his village, he was spotted by Leishangthem Chinglen, an ex-army man who was a former national level boxer. "He sheltered and mentored me. Every week, Chinglen would take me to at least 2-3 academies for sparring, from National Sports Academy and SAI Manipur to Sarita Devi and Mary Kom's academy," Jadumani said. So confident was Chinglen of his ward's ability that he would often challenge heavier boxers to take him on, and sure enough, the sub-30kg Jadumani would beat them. Late in 2016, Jadumani was selected to Army Sports Institute, Pune but his career hit a roadblock in 2018 when he was deemed underweight even for the lowest division (46kg). For two years, he was stuck at 38kg, and when he finally met the standard, Covid struck. Another two-year wait followed, and it was not until 2022 that he got competition. "The wait seemed endless, but I never lost hope. I will make it all count at the Worlds," he said....