CHENNAI: No sport had seen such a slump like boxing last year. The sport that is among the well-funded and supported by the sports ministry and Sports Authority of India through various schemes had the worst possible 2024 that culminated in zero medal at the Paris Olympics. In fact, such was the situation that until about the last qualification tournament, no male boxer had qualified for the Olympics.
For a better future, former boxers and experts feel it's time Boxing Federation of India (BFI) usher in fundamental changes to their strategy to rebuild boxing and its legacy. The sport has seen maximum funding in the last Olympic cycle. According to a SAI document Pathway to Paris, Rs 60.93 crore was spent for 17 national camps and 23 foreign exposure trips abroad. The team went and spent almost a month in Saarbrucken to acclimatise before leaving for Paris. There were about eight sparring partners for five boxers and 16 coaches and support staff including a chef. The preparation looked great but results did not.
Former Commonwealth Games gold medallist and Olympic quarter-finalist in 2008, Akhil Kumar, felt there should be accountability. If there is no result, somebody must take the responsibility. Things have changed since their time. There is no dearth of funding and there are more support staff than what it used to be 10 years ago. It is time the BFI introspect its failure to find a tangible solution.
Akhil felt it is time to usher in changes because the system is not working. "It is not an individual game because after a point of time, it becomes a team game when one has to consider the involvement of coaches and support staff," he said. "There will be a head coach, a physiotherapist, a psychologist and even a video analyst. There is a whole team. Not just the boxers and the support staff, even the officials who are sitting in the federation and making plans for the boxers. So it's a collective failure. One must also understand that though it is a team that is working, it is an individual's (boxer) need one has to cater to."
Akhil felt that the coaches, especially foreign, should understand the mentality of the players. "One has to understand the mentality of Indian athletes. This means uska dil bhi aagaya, uska will bhi aagaya (both mind and will will be there). Until and unless we don't understand how they will perform and would want to train or play, we will not be able to improve. That is, of course, my understanding. Making slides and PPTs will not produce medals. One has to understand the sport and the player and his or her specific needs."
Beijing Games bronze medallist, Vijender Singh, echoed the same. "The coach has to know what the boxer wants and who he wants to train with," he told this daily. "For example, when I was in the national camp before the Olympics, I had about three-four different sparring partners with me. This helps because you are not alone all the time in the camp. And also, this helps you in training."
Vijender said that no one from BFI approaches him for any help or suggestion but would love to share what he has learnt about boxing over the years. He is even willing to join the BFI if need be.
Akhil, in fact, felt that players like Vijender and MC Mary Kom should be part of BFI and its think-tank. "They have all the top medals in the world and what better way than to share their experience," he said. "They should be part of BFI."
He also felt that Indian coaches should be encouraged more. "There are about 100 coaches who qualify every year through different courses, why not try them? I am saying this because the current system is not giving results," he said.
Manisha Malhotra, sports excellence and scouting JSW Sports, has seen the sport from close quarters. She has been working closely with boxers even before the Beijing Olympics, when she was part of Mittal Champions Trust. She also said that BFI needs a complete overhaul in the system. Lack of national competitions is one of the major drawbacks. "One boxer from each state is allowed to participate and there is only one senior nationals to select a boxer; the national camp restricts choices," she said. "We need to come up with a ranking system and be a feeder so that the best boxers are in the nationals."
Manisha said that the idea is to have many national camps so that BFI has more experienced boxers. She said, as of now, the experienced pugilists are those who go to tournaments on their own through JSW or OGQ.
Akhil felt that coaching staff should also be held accountable. He said that CA Kutappa, who had been part of Vijender's coaching team during Beijing Olympics, is good because he produced results. "But something would have gone wrong here," he said. "Even DP Yadav is a very good boxer. They should be asked as to what went wrong. They are all experienced enough to know and report."
"Our batch — Vijender, Dinesh (Kumar), Jai Bhagwan, Jitender (Kumar), Suranjoy (Singh), Suresh (Singh), Ali Qamar (Mohammed), Manpreet (Singh), there were very good boxers," said Akhil. "And their outcome/performance was dependent on individual training.
There is one schedule for everyone. But individual training used to support our individual style. Some had closed guards, some like me preferred open guard, so we used to have extra training on our favoured style or technique. The coaches used to support us and give us more inputs to fine-tune our strength. There used to be changes but the basics remained the same. We understood what a boxer needed and how his or her recovery would be. We had BI Fernandes from Cuba as foreign coach who even coached senior players like Dingko Singh. He understood us and knew what we required. He was not like a foreign coach, he was like an Indian coach."
"But now the foreign coaches are different," Akhil said. "They are trying to enforce certain things on the boxers. When Santiago was there or when Bernard Dunne took over, even the current one.... The Cuban coach understood the mentality of the Indian boxers. We need a foreign coach who understands the Indian mentality. I remember once when I was doing weight management in 2004, I was not eating chicken. So once in the dining hall, I did not eat chicken and the coach also did not eat. He may have gone later and eaten, I don't know but for me it was a support because I thought for me coach is not eating. Indians are bound by emotions."
2024 had been a forgettable year for boxing. Hopefully, 2o25 will see changes in the sport that would take it back to its glory days.