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The dearth of adequate tournaments has hit Indian boxing hard for a long time now. The paucity of so-called ‘real time bout experience’ has been proving detrimental for the development of the sport in the country. Just sample this: the Indian boxers have featured in only four tournaments since the 2014 Incheon Asian Games held in August-September.
In fact, the country’s boxers were confined to only training in national camps as there was not a single tournament for them to play for close to seven months until the President’s Cup happened in Indonesia in April 2015.
A month later, a Doha Invitational Event was held and then again our boxers had no tournaments for close to four months as they took part in the Asian Boxing Championship in Bangkok held in August-September and a month later at the 2015 AIBA World Championship in Doha.
Clearly, four tournaments in nearly a year with hardly any national level events have rocked the Indian boxing boat. Ever since Boxing India was provisionally suspended by the International Boxing Federation (AIBA) earlier this year, things have been far from being hunky-dory for the Kishen Narsi-headed committee appointed by AIBA to look after the Indian boxing affairs as well as find a suitable entity who can run Indian boxing.
Given the fact that the Indian boxers are playing under an orphaned body, it is indeed remarkable that they have always made their presence felt in all major events. At the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games Indian pugilists scooped up five medals – four silver via Sarita Devi, Vijender Singh, Devendro Singh and Mandeep Jangra with Pinki Jangra claiming the lone bronze.
Our boxers did not let us down at the 2014 Incheon Asian Games as well picking up five medals including gold from iconic MC Mary Kom with the likes of Vikas Krishan Yadav, Satish Kumar, Sarita Devi and Pooja Rani garnering bronze medals. At the 2015 Asian Championships, Indian and women collectively won 10 medals. Shiva Thapa won a coveted bronze in the 2015 AIBA World Championship.
Performance-wise the country’s frontline boxers might be doing well despite being starved of adequate competitions, but the scenario looks grim when you think of the second and third rung boxers among others in each weight category, who are lying idle with no tournaments to prove their worth at the national level and hope for a career in the sport. One can feel sorry for these budding talents because of administration logjam there is now a great deal of uncertainty now over their future.
But there could be a glimmer of hope for these national level boxers as the Kishen Narsi-headed ad-hoc committee is planning to hold All India Men's Tournament in Goa from November 16-21. The said event assumes plenty of significance as the probables for the Asian Olympic Qualifiers, to be held in China in March – the next major international assignment, will be selected based on the performance of the boxers of that event.
Let’s hope that the holding of this event will be the comforting feeling for hordes of domestic boxers, who have not been able to take the ring owing to the rudderless federation.
