CHENNAI: SATURDAY was a red-letter day for Indian boxing. As many as seven boxers from the country returned with gold medals around their necks while three won silver, the country's best-ever show in the history of Commonwealth Games by a country mile. The Boxing Federation of India (BFI) president, Ajay Singh, is also a delighted man. But he's also mindful that the boxers' task is far from over as the Asian Games — expected to be much more challenging than the CWG — is not far away.
"While this is a historic event, this is also preparation for the championships to come. The Asian Games as well as the Olympics in 2028. So the team will continue to work hard," Singh said, during a virtual interaction facilitated by BFI.
Singh, who watched the boxers make history from up close at Glasgow, felt the upcoming Asiad, scheduled to be held from September 19 to October 4 in Japan, will be sort of a marker ahead of their ultimate target — the Los Angeles Games.
"The Asian Games for us is like the Olympics. The best teams in the world today are Asian teams. The top-three teams in the world today are Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and India. In addition to that, there's a strong Chinese contingent. This performance cannot be replicated but we'll still do very well. If you win a large number of medals at the Asian Games, you can also be sure you will win medals at the Olympics. We had some good teams here," he said.
Preeti Sai Pawar (W54kg), Jaismine Lamboria (W57kg, Sakshi Chaudhary (W51kg), Priya Ghanghas (W60kg), Arundhati Choudhary (W70kg), Sachin Siwach (M60kg) were among gold winners while Lovlina Borgohain (W75kg), Jadumani Singh (M55kg) and Narender Berwal (M90+kg) returned with silver medals. While most of the boxers thrived, there were a few from other disciplines who remained in the shadows after early exits. And there was a feeling that the underachievers, part of Asiad squad, might come under scrutiny. "Firstly, we had already announced that people who are going for the CWG will also be going for the Asiad if they get into the finals — if they get a gold medal or a silver medal. So the team for the Asiad is already selected," Singh said, when asked about the same.
Later, Singh, while stressing on the importance of building on this stellar show, did share concerns about misses in certain disciplines. "We're very very hungry. We are also aware of many things we need to do. We need to become stronger, better. In some weight categories, we definitely need to be better than what we did. We're hungry for the Asiad. There's a lot of work that needs to be done."
Moreover, Singh, who is serving his third consecutive term as BFI chief, is also hopeful of improving the overall state of the sport in the country. Interestingly, he also revealed the federations plans of restarting the league/professional format of boxing some time this year.
"I think we are on a good programme. We have a plan until the Olympics 2028 and we will diligently follow that plan. In a country of 1.4 billion people, we feel we need many more people at the grassroots level. For that we need to have many more championships at zonal/district/state levels. We'll try our very best to move forward. With significantly increased funding through CSR activities, etc, we expect that we'll be able to identify much more talent at the grassroots and bring them up and ensure that they get proper training camps at the sub-junior/junior/youth level. We need much more consistency, much more work so that we can create a consistent pipeline of boxers. This year we also expect to restart the league/professional format of boxing to give more exposure to boxers."