At the World Boxing Championships at Almaty, in Kazakhstan, three Indian competitors entered the quarterfinals today. With their entry, India now have an unprecedented five boxers in the last eight stage. That made it one better than the previous best achieved in the 2011 edition in Azerbaijan. The boxers who reached the quarter-finals today are: Vikash Malik (60kg), Sumit Sangwan (81kg) and SatishKumar (+91kg). The three joined Shiva Thapa (56kg) and Manoj Kumar (64kg) in the last eight stage. An elated national coach Gurbax Singh Sandhu told PTI that it is a historic performance. He said India have won medals but as far as reaching this level is concerned, it is the first time that five Indians have made the quarterfinals. Vikash was the first Indian boxer to step into the ring today and was the underdog against fifth seed and former 2008 European Championships silver-medallist Miklos Varga. The Indian trailed by a couple of points in the opening round but made a stupendous recovery in the next two rounds, clinching them unanimously to emerge triumphant. Next in was Sumit.The 20-year-old Olympian handed out a thrashing to eighth seed Siarhei Novikau of Belarus in a lop-sided contest which the Indian claimed 3-0. The last Indian in the ring today was Satish and the imposing pugilist outpunched Belarus' Yan Sudzilouski 3-0. Indian boxers' performance so far is a creditable one given that they cannot compete under the national flag due tothe federation's provisional suspension. India have won a total of two medals at the World Championships — through Vijender Singh (2009) and VikasKrishan (2011).