Mary Kom's coach Chhote Lal Yadav to travel to Tokyo Olympics; Panghal's coach not on list

Yadav, a three-time national champion in the 57kg category, has been Olympic bronze-medallist Mary’s coach for the better part of the last five years.

Mary Kom’s coach Chhote Lal Yadav has been named in the Boxing Federation of India's (BFI) list of coaches that will travel with the team to the Tokyo Olympics. 

Mary Kom’s coach Chhote Lal Yadav has been named in the Boxing Federation of India's (BFI) list of coaches that will travel with the team to the Tokyo Olympics. 

Yadav, a three-time national champion in the 57kg category, has been Olympic bronze-medallist Mary’s coach for the better part of the last five years. He completed his 2-star level coaching certification from the International Boxing Federation (AIBA) in 2018.

“Mary Kom’s coach Chhote Lal Yadav has been included in the list of the coaching staff that will accompany the Indian boxing contingent to the Tokyo Olympics,” a senior BFI official told  Sportstar  on Friday.

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Amit Panghal, who will go into the Olympics as the top seed in the men’s 52kg category, has for long been urging that his childhood coach Anil Dhankar should be allowed to accompany him to the Tokyo Games, but that will not be possible.

The BFI official said Panghal was told well in advance that his coach would not make the cut. The Federation had agreed to send Dhankar to the training camp in Assisi, Italy while stressing that he will not be travelling to Tokyo. Dhankar is a 1-star level AIBA-certified coach.

“On that basis, we had sent a long list of members of the coaching and support staff we intend to send to the Olympics to the Indian Olympic Association (IOA). The IOA then sends the list to the International Olympic Committee and everything is registered. Once the long list is registered, we can subsequently reduce but cannot add names to it. Panghal’s coach’s name was not part of this list. Panghal intended to take his coach at a belated stage and by then the long list had been frozen,” the official said.

The BFI will send an eight-member coaching and support staff team to the Tokyo Olympics. The team will be led by the national high-performance director Santiago Nieva and will include four more coaches in women’s foreign boxing coach Raffaele Bergamasco, men’s national coach CA Kuttappa, women’s coach Ali Qamar and Chhote Lal Yadav.  Two physiotherapists, Rohit Kashyap and Aayush Yekhande, and team doctor Dr Karanjeet Singh will form the support staff.

Nine Indian pugilists have qualified for the Tokyo Olympics - Amit Panghal (52kg), Manish Kaushik (63kg), Vikas Krishan (69kg), Ashish Kumar (75kg), Satish Kumar (+91kg), Mary Kom (51kg), Simranjit Kaur (60kg), Lovlina Borgohain (69kg) and Pooja Rani (75kg).