Boxing coach Simms: I have specific plans for Vikas Krishan

Roland Simms wants to maintain Olympic-bound Vikas' weight and ensure that his professional style of boxing complements the amateur style.

Vikas Krishan (in red) is set to train for Tokyo 2021.

 

Boxing coach Roland Simms has specific plans to train Olympic-bound boxers Vikas Krishan and Ashish Kumar, who are going through a quarantine period before joining the Inspire Institute of Sport (IIS) camp at Vijayanagara, Karnataka.

According to Simms, former World championships bronze medallist Vikas, who switched back from professional boxing to try his luck in the Olympics, needs to be trained in a way so that he can handle the demands of both professional and amateur boxing (including the Olympics) next year.

“I do have specific plans for Vikas because he does plan to get maybe a few professional bouts by the first few months of 2021. So, we have to maintain his weight for the next year and make sure that his professional style of boxing complements his amateur style as he returns to the amateur fold,” Simms said in an interaction with Sportstar .

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“With Ashish, initially the focus will be on rehab from the slight injury he picked up at the (Olympic) qualifiers. We’ll have to discuss his plans with the national team, and hopefully I’ll be able to discuss this with the coaching team (Santiago Nieva and C.A. Kuttappa) and help in whatever way I can.”

Ronald Simms.

 

Asked how he would combine training methods of the national camp and of the IIS, the American said, “We will have to see how that’s going to go because as of now, we haven’t heard from the national team – whether they’re going to be training here at IIS or at Patiala. Speaking of Vikas, since his focus will be on the professional circuit, we will be working on that basis, while for Ashish we’ll have to see where the national team is going to train for us to be able to take that call.”

On the training sessions for different levels of boxers at the IIS, Simms said the methodology did not change much owing to restrictions during the pandemic.

“We have the regular classroom (or theory) sessions after which we do conditioning and then also individual technical training like the basic fundamentals of punching, footwork and defence. So in those respects, the methodology hasn't changed as such, but we've made changes in how we go about executing them,” he said.