Pressure is mounting on boxing’s high performance director Bernard Dunne after Indian boxers failed to win a single Paris Olympics quota from the world qualifiers in Italy.
Six men and two women boxers crashed out in their opening rounds. Only Nishant Dev in 71kg won three bouts and bowed out in the quarter-finals, a round before the prized Olympic quota.
The most shocking is the performance of men boxers. India have failed to win any Paris Olympics quota in seven weight divisions so far from two events — Asian Games and the world qualification tournament. Among women, four boxers have booked Paris berths from the Asian Games — Nikhat Zareen, Lovlina Borgohain, Preeti Saipawar and Parveen Hooda. The focus is now on the last qualifying event for the Paris Olympics in Bangkok from May 23.
It has been learnt that the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) and Sports Authority of India have called separate meetings with HPD Dunne and foreign coach Dmitry Dmitruk.
“We are very dissatisfied with the result and we have asked the BFI president to call an immediate meeting with the coaches to review the situation,” a member of the BFI executive council said on Wednesday.
“We never had such a poor performance. We need to know from the HPD what are the reasons and what is the remedy,” he said.
SAI has also called for an assessment meeting with Dunne and the BFI top brass.
With only four months remaining for the Paris Olympics, the boxing results have come as a shocker. Nine boxers, five men and four women, had qualified for the Tokyo Olympics with Lovlina Borgohain winning a bronze. It is unlikely that so many boxers will make it to the Paris Olympics.
“If you are not able to win the opening round then there is a problem. Our boxers have been found lacking in every department, there is no strategy in place,” said a former international boxer.
Dunne, who replaced Santiago Nieva as high performance director, joined the Indian team in October 2022. The Irishman was in charge of the Irish boxing team from 2017-2022 and helped them win European, world and Olympic medals.
However, he found the going tough in India and his selection methods courted controversy. Dunne scrapped the selection trials and introduced an evaluation process in the national camp, based on parameters like performance in training, technique, weight management, sparring, etc. Many countries follow this method of selection but it met with stiff resistance from boxers, coaches and within the BFI. Some boxers even challenged the selection policy in the court.
It was not only the change in selection policy, but his decision to reduce the number of national elite campers that has been criticised.
“There is a dearth of sparring partners in national camps. We have a variety of boxers and to prepare your elite boxers they need to spar with boxers of different styles. That is not happening. Most of the boxers have lost the first round and once you are behind it is very difficult to come back in the next two rounds,” said a coach on condition of anonymity.
“Dunne is taking all the calls in selection. Even if it is an evaluation, why nobody else from outside is called to assess the form and fitness of boxers. We have been raising these things. It was discussed in the BFI meeting but turned down,” said another coach.
Some of his selections have come under the scanner. Like in flyweight category, world championships medallist Deepak Bhoria was preferred over Tokyo Olympian Amit Panghal, who recently won the Strandja Memorial. Bhoria has now competed in two qualification tournaments.
“You cannot keep giving chances to the same boxer. Also, Md Hussamuddin was coming back from a knee surgery. We have a good boxer in Sachin in the same weight class and he could have been given a chance. You need to see the form and fitness in selection trials,” the coach added.
