In January of 2023, in a video conference call involving him, Indian coaches and officials of the Boxing Federation of India, newly appointed High-Performance Director of Indian boxing Bernard Dunne laid out his plan for Indian boxing. Dunne, a former professional world champion, had a radical new approach to training compared to how things had been done previously.
Indian national camps, said Dunne, would feature only two boxers in each weight class – in contrast to the four who were previously accommodated. The camps would only be organised for boxers in the 12 Olympic weight categories (7 for men and 6 for women).
Most significantly, teams for major competitions like the Asian Games, World Championships or Olympic qualifiers would be selected based on an internal assessment by himself and the coaches rather than through trials, as was the case earlier.
Dunne’s plans would come in for criticism during the call itself. It is learnt that one senior coach said the proposals would be the ‘end of Indian boxing’. As it turned out, Dunne would get his way. Within a few months, coaches who weren’t willing to buy into Dunne’s vision found themselves sidelined. National men’s coach Narender Rana is currently posted in Assam while National women’s coach Bhaskar Bhatt was transferred to work with India’s youth women boxers in Hisar.
A little over a year after that video conference call, Dunne is himself out. Following a dismal performance by the Indian team at the World Olympic boxing qualifiers -- not only did none of the 9 Indians in contention win an Olympic quota, all but one (Nishant Dev) were eliminated in the very first round -- Dunne tendered his resignation to the Boxing Federation of India. Dunne’s resignation was accepted and followed on Wednesday by the dismissal of Dmitry Dmitruk who was working as foreign coach with the men’s team.
As things stand India has only four qualified boxers – all women – for the Paris Olympics. Although more boxers will be expected to qualify at the second World qualifiers in May, it is uncertain whether they will equal the number (nine), who booked their ticket to Tokyo Games.
According to one line of thinking, India’s results, although disappointing, were on the cards. While Dunne had produced impressive results as High-Performance Director of Ireland -- they had won a gold and bronze in Tokyo after drawing a blank at the previous games in Rio -- some argued that the same template might not fit in the Indian context.
“It made no sense to limit the number of boxers in the camps. It might make sense when you don’t have that many boxers in all. But India’s biggest advantage has always been that we have a number of boxers. Within the 51kg category, we will have a tall boxer, a shorter one, someone who is technical, someone who is a pressure fighter. That way every boxer gets to spar with very different kinds of opponents. When you include just a few boxers, the ones in the camp don’t get the same kind of practice,” says a coach from the camp who didn’t want to be named.
Changed training patterns
According to another coach, Dunne had also introduced shorter, sharper training sessions once a day, in contrast to the twice-a-day workouts that boxers had been used to. “This was something that didn’t suit a lot of our boxers. Every boxer in the national camp has been boxing for at least a decade or more. You can see the result of the lower physical volume at the Olympic qualifiers,” says another coach.
“Your technique will always be strong in the first round of a bout but in the second and third it is your physical conditioning that plays a key role. If you have so many Indians losing in the first round itself it’s clear that their physical conditioning wasn’t at the level it should have been,” says a coach.
Where Dunne found himself at the crosshairs of most in Indian boxing though was in his insistence on doing away with selection trials. Dunne had once explained that by conducting trials, the coaches and selection panel were shirking their responsibility. He had added that boxers were focussing on the trials and then finding it hard to recover in time for the tournament that mattered. Dunne instead wanted to pick players based on consistency in training, discipline and sparring.
While it was a decision that was sound in principle, players were often left confused about where they stood in terms of selection. Two players – Amit Panghal (men’s 51kg) and Arundhati Choudhary (women’s 66kg) would approach the courts for intervention but despite that, the federation continued to back Dunne.
FILE PHOTO: Boxing Federation of India (BFI) President Ajay Singh with Irish former professional boxer and High Performance Director Bernard Dunne. | Photo Credit: PTI
However, one of the consequences of Dunne’s insistence on eliminating trials was that the buck, in terms of selection, ultimately stopped with him. The decision to pick World bronze medallist Deepak Bhoria in place of the reigning champion Amit Panghal for the (first Olympic qualification tournament) Asian Games immediately backfired when he lost before the medal rounds.
Amit’s exclusion at the Olympic qualifiers in Italy took on an even worse look considering he had just won the prestigious Strandja Memorial Tournament just a few weeks before. Arundhati Choudhary, who also reached the final of the Strandja tournament, beat France’s Emilie Sonvico en route. The same French opponent beat Ankushita Boro – who was picked for the qualifiers in place of Arundhati -- in the first round.
“It’s not just a matter of not picking one boxer. When you insist on sticking with just one boxer, apart from bringing down the confidence of the others, you are making the one who is selected overconfident. That’s why we have trials,” a coach says.
India no exception?
But for all the criticism of Dunne, there is another line of reasoning that the decision to accept the Irishman’s resignation was made in haste. All boxing programs need time to settle down. The methodology Dunne employs has delivered striking results in Ireland and Great Britain. And India under Dunne did pick up their best-ever result at a World Championships – winning three medals at the 2023 edition in Tashkent exactly a year ago. Indian women’s boxing hasn’t done too bad either -- they picked up four quotas from the Hangzhou Asian Games during Dunne’s tenure.
A closer look at the immediate trigger for Dunne’s exit is also not as clear-cut as it might seem. All but one (Lakshya Chahar in men’s 80kg division) of the Indian men’s boxers who were defeated at the Olympic qualifiers lost to the eventual quota winner.
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Furthermore, the Indians weren’t the only team to have a disappointing World qualifier. Only one boxer from the USA qualified across the men’s and women’s categories – Omari Jones who won a narrow decision against India’s Nishant Dev. Great Britain too had just one men’s boxer qualify out of the five they entered in the competition.
The absence of video footage for any of the early matches also makes it uncertain whether an Indian boxer received a harsh decision. While India might not have won a single quota at the first Olympic qualifier, it’s unlikely that that will be the case in the second one in the end of May – whether or not Dunnes principles are junked or not.
With the world’s top boxers having already booked their ticket to Paris either at the Continental Games or the first Olympic qualifier, the field in Bangkok will be a lot easier to navigate. To add to the diminished field, there are as many quotas (or in the case of the men’s 57kg and 63.5kg category an extra one) as there were in Italy.
In the absence of the High-Performance Director and foreign coach, India’s boxers and coaches will have to find their own path though. While they might be left in a state of confusion, coaches believe it is still possible to salvage the situation. “There’s still some time left for the second qualifiers. They have had a bad tournament but it isn’t that India’s boxers have somehow lost their ability,” says a coach.
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