Italian stint before Olympic qualifiers for boxers

CHENNAI: The India men’s and women’s boxing teams will be heading to Italy for a training camp ahead of the Asia-Oceania Olympic qualifiers to be held next month. MC Mary Kom & Co will leave on February 17 while men will join them three days later. It will be a big opportunity for the Indians to assess where they stand ahead of the qualifiers, scheduled for next month, as boxers from 10 countries will be training there.

The likes of Mary and Amit Panghal will get a chance to spar with quality pugilists from countries like Russia, Ireland and Italy. A total of 109 boxers (77 male and 32 female) are expected to take part. After the stint, the teams will head to Amman for the qualifiers. The qualifiers were originally supposed to be held in Wuhan, China from February 3-14 but were shifted to Jordan due to the coronavirus outbreak.

That had disrupted the plans of everyone including Indians. The male boxers from the country had trained in Inspire Institute of Sport, Vijayanagar for over two months before travelling to Sports Authority of India, Patiala recently. The women’s team, meanwhile, have been training in Delhi.

Ever since the qualifiers were pushed back — a last-minute decision — the boxers have had to re-adjust their plans. “We had a couple of days break. We started with volume training, lowering the intensity and more volume. We’ve been gradually increasing the intensity,” Santiago Nieva, India men’s boxing high-performance director, said. “The boxers are displaying a good level. It looks good, but it will be a tough competition (qualifiers). We will leave no stone unturned.”

Nieva had earlier said that the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) was seeking a strength and conditioning expert. The BFI had a tried-and-tested candidate in the form of Rickard Nilsson, who’s worked with the team in the past, in mind. However, that didn’t come through.

“He (Rickard) had set a good base, which we are following. In Bellary, we had experts and now BFI is in the process of appointing a permanent one,” Nieva said. In the near future, the AIBA three-star coach is hopeful of a high-altitude training stint for his wards. “We had to cancel our plans to go to Colorado Springs for high-altitude training before the Wuhan qualifiers. But we will probably go in June instead.”