After India’s poor show at the World Boxing Qualifier, just four month before the Paris Olympics, the High Performance Director of the entire team, Bernard Dunne has stepped down from his position. If that is not enough, foreign coach Dmitry Dmitruk could be sacked soon as well.
Dunne, the known Irish professional boxer joined the Indian team in October 2022, sent his resignation from Italy itself, where the 1st Paris Olympic qualifier was played. Indian boxers, especially the men’s pugilist have been poor so far, as none of them have been able to book Paris 2024 berth.
The Boxing Federation of India (BFI) has called an executive meeting on Friday to assess the situation. “Bernard is out. We have called an executive meeting tomorrow, where we will assess everything. A call on Dmitry’s future will also be taken in tomorrow’s meeting,” BFI Secretary General Hemanta Kalita told PTI.
Now, the reigns of the teams will be handed to the Indian coaches. “There will be no foreign coaches as of now. We will be looking at Indian coaches,” he added.
Debacle at the Boxing Qualifiers
None of the Indian boxers, except for Nishant Dev, could even win a match, let alone the qualification. Others crashed out in the first rounds itself, that has raised a lot of eyebrows, losing out to opponents, who were ranked lower to them.
So far India has bagged four quotas in boxing, all women — Nikhat Zareen (50kg), Preeti Pawar (54kg), Parveen Hooda (57kg), and Tokyo Olympics bronze-medallist Lovlina Borgohain (75kg). Now the remaining five categories will have a chance to go through in the second qualifiers, that will be held in Bangkok, from May 23.
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