At the 2006 Junior World Championships, he lost to future (2007) seniors world champion Sergey Vodopyanov. At the Commonwealth Games 2006 he lost his semifinal to eventual winner Don Broadhurst. At the 2nd Olympic qualifier he beat Noman Karim, lost his semi to Mirat Sarsembayev but won the all-important third place bout against Godfrey Castro 13:6 and qualified.
At the 2008 summer Olympics, Jitender was pitted against Turkey's Ulas Furkan Memis in the round of 32. The referee stopped the contest in the third round of the bout when Jitender led 12–3. In the round of 16, he was up against Uzbek boxer Tulashboy Doniyorov. In an ill-tempered bout, Jitender outscored his opponent 13–6.[3] However, his dream run at Beijing 2008 Olympics came to an end when he lost to Georgy BalakshinofRussia (11-15) in a tightly fought quarter finals match held at Workers Indoor Arena on 20 August 2008. Jitender had 9 stitches in his jaw during the quarterfinal. If blood came out then the referee would stop the match and this put him under tremendous pressure. He was coached by the Indian Boxing Coach Gurbaksh Singh Sandhu.
