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Focus is on the Sport, not the Politics: Ajay Singh, President, Boxing Federation of India


Boxing Federation of India (BFI) president, Ajay Singh, talks to ET about India’s performance at the recently-concluded World Championships, Olympic plans, players’ training and the challenges he faced in the last two years as the head of BFI. Edited excerpts

How do you see India’s performance in the just-concluded Women’s World Boxing Championships?

I’m very happy. (If you look at) the last four editions of these championships, we won only one silver medal in the last championship, the championship before that we won two medals (both silver). And the two championships before that we had only one bronze. The last time we won a gold was in 2010. So I think we’re making good progress. But it’s still a work in progress. We were very far behind two years ago when we took over the BFI. I think in many ways, the performance of our boxers as well as the federation has been pretty good in the last two years. Olympic qualifications will begin next year.

What is the federation planning to do?

We need to now identify the boxers in the weight categories that have been designated and train them really hard. We will participate in all the qualifying championships. The elite men and women World Championships which are going to be held next year will be qualifying championships for the Olympics. In addition to that, the WSB championships, in which we are going to participate, is also going to be a qualifying tournament. And lastly, the continental qualifier, which will be held in 2020, we will do our best to try and see that it is held in India so that there is home advantage (for our boxers). So we will try and qualify as many boxers as we can for the Olympics. That’s the first part and then we have to train them.

On the training side, what are the steps the federation has taken?
We now have training camps which are running 365 days of the year. What we are doing is we have 40 boxers in each category and we are trying to get the best coaches for them, international coaches as well as Indian coaches, nutrition experts, sports psychologists and there is nothing that we will be lacking.

Our Olympic team and the rest of our team will get the best possible facilities that are available in the world for boxing including a lot of match competition. No stone will be left unturned.

It’s been two years in office for you. What have been the biggest challenges?

The last four or five years before we took over (in 2016) there was no federation and our players couldn’t fight under their own flag. There was no coordinated training program and boxing was in complete shambles. We had absolutely no recognition or respect anywhere in the world. And in the last two years, it’s been a huge challenge to bring it back.

But like AIBA has been saying, the speed at which progress has been made has been really good. We’ve held international championships, there is the Indian Open as well that we had this year and we will hold it again next year and our players are consistently going outside and getting match practice.

Ultimately, the federation’s activities are about boxing and the boxers. So, we are trying to do our best for boxers and now we are already regarded as a power in boxing.

Anything particular that you changed?

The first thing is that our focus has been on the sport and not on the politics of the sport. We’ve tried very hard to make sure we have fair selections. We hold domestic championships, which were not being held for so many years. We select boxers from there in a fair manner, get them into training camps, provide the best training facilities that we possibly can, select the best possible teams for international championships in a free and fair manner by having a proper, documented selection process.

The fact that we are able to send our players to so many international championships, the players believe that they are actually being looked after and that we care.

When we started, the situation was really poor. The first time we tried to send a team overseas, they didn’t have (proper) clothes. They were going to a country where it was snowing. They just had thin tracksuits. So just equipping them first with the basics and then making them believe that they will get the best in the world but they have to aspire to be the best in the world.





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