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Indian pugilists ended their campaign at the Asian Boxing Championships with a respectable fourth-place finish, out of the 28 countries who set a new participation record . Asian boxing powerhouses Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan clinched the top spots on the podium with 42 points and 38 points respectively. Host nation Thailand filled the last spot with 17 points, with India missing out by just 1 point to finish with a tally of 16 points.
India’s medal collection at the tournament consisted of three bronzes won by L Devendro Singh (49kg), Shiva Thapa (56kg) and Satish Kumar (+91kg), while Vikas Krishan (75kg) won the lone silver. While India’s medal tally did not help it make the cut at the top of the table, it did rack up the third-most boxers to have qualified for the World Championships which will begin from October 6th in Doha next month.
The World Championships are especially significant because they are the first qualifying event for the 2016 Rio Olympics. Apart from the medallists, Manoj Kumar (64kg) and Madan Lal (52kg) also qualified because their vanquishers in the quarterfinals eventually made it to the finals, to form a 6-member contingent that is eligible for the Worlds. Silver lining indeed. Kazhakstan were the ones to beat here as well, with 9 of their boxers qualifying, and Uzbekistan continuing the trend by coming second with 8 boxers qualifying.
The few chests that swell with pride will be swiftly deflated. Fine print has a bad habit of doing that. While all the gritty fighters who fought and won for the nation and punched tickets for next month’s World Championships are true-blue Indians, they are cruelly orphaned because currently, there is no sovereign, internationally recognised Indian boxing authority. The roots of this controversy can be traced back to 2012, when AIBA derecognized the Indian Boxing Federation for discrepancies in its election process. The situation did not show any signs of amelioration this year, as internal skirmishes forced AIBA to adhere to its original decision.
To avoid rendering Indian boxing completely toothless, AIBA constituted a 5 member ad-hoc committee in June, to manage and organise the sport in India. The transient nature of the ad-hoc committee means it is not the supreme authority and therefore no name and national logo or anthem can be used as representation by Indian boxers. Will the despondence of this scenario, where diligent, courageous ambassadors of sport in this country are left without an identity, be another chapter in the tragedy that is Indian sport?
