Before the 1994 Victoria Commonwealth Games, Indian boxing team was given a one-month exposure of training-cum-compitition in Cuba. 

A teenager boxer, who was yet to participate in the senior nationals, was included in the national squad. 

Birju Sah, whose bronze-medal winning feat in the Junior Asian Championship held at Thailand, Bangkok, got him a call for the national camp. And in the camp he defeated all the seniors in 48kg and eventually made it to the seniors' squad. 

Birju traveled along with the team to Cuba and his performance against Cuban boxers was exceptional and just at 19, he announced  his arrival in the Indian boxing scene. 

"The Cuban tour turned out to be a great  platform for me. And the coaches also started hoping big from me," recalled Birju, who is working as a security guard in Tatanagar and doubles up as a coach after his shift. He is giving free coaching to the underprivileged kids at his locality  for the last 7 years. "From Cuba we traveled to Victoria to participate in the Commonwealth Games. There I was the only Indian boxer who made a podium finish - won bronze. A medal in Victoria changed everything. Overnight I became a star in the boxing circles in India." 

The next was Hiroshima Asian Games and there too Birju was on the target and won a medal (bronze). 

Birju became the country first boxer to won medals in both Asian Games and Commonwealth  Games. 

The next was, Vijender Singh. The Bhiwani boxer achieved the feat in 2006 - winning silver in CWG and bronze in Asian Games.

"I started boxing in 1994 and that time Birju was a supper star and all the kids in Jharkhand wanted to be like him," says 2004 Olympian Diwakar Prasad. "Birju is my ideal. I achieved excellence in the sport only after watching him."

"I won bronze medal in the 1994 Hiroshima Asian Games. Birju also won bronze. But I rate him the country's best boxer of that era. He was a deadly boxer and used to box like a lion-hearted," says Gurmeet Singh, who is an officer with Punjab Police.