Pugilist Jitender Kumar went down fighting against Russia's Georgy Balakshin in the quarterfinals of the men's 51 kg category, dashing India's medal hopes in the Olympic Games in Beijing on Wednesday.

Jitender missed a bronze after he lost 11-15 against the Russian opponent.

The boxer from Bhiwani started aggressively and the scores were pretty even till the second round when the Indian was trailing just by one point (6-7).

But the third round proved to be decisive as a flurry of punches from the Russian earned him as many as six points against only two to the credit of the Indian.

Jitender could not make up for the lost ground as the Russian resorted to defensive tactics, making scoring very difficult for his opponent in the last round.

The Indian although reduced the margin in the fourth and final round when the referee awarded him an extra point to counter the Russian's negative tactics making it 3-2 in his favour. But that made little difference to the result.