Some points, it will be argued, could have gone Akhil’s way in the beginning. They didn’t.

Coach Gurbax Singh Sandhu said the strategy was to go all out for the first 30 seconds. They went unscored. But once the Moldovan had withstood the initial flurry, said Sandhu, Akhil was demoralised and felt physical pressure. Also, he added, if a boxer feels he is not scoring for “correct” punches, it increases frustration.

Boxing, Sandhu repeated, is a different ballgame: “After beating the world number one (as Akhil did to get to the quarter-finals), you lose to a non-entity.” No competitor is, of course, a non-entity. But the coach emphasised that had punches been scored in the early minutes, everything could have changed. But: “We were not able to beat the computer and impress the judges.”

By then, the reality of the loss had sunk in and the coach said, Akhil is very upset, he is not able to talk.

But minutes before Akhil Kumar had made a promise: he would help Jitender Kumar and Vijender Kumar for their bouts on Wednesday.