India delivered its best ever performance at the Asian Boxing Championships in 2019 when the athletes brought home 13 medals.
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Olympic-bound Indian boxers will be able to test their preparations and skills ahead of The Games in Tokyo at the Asian Boxing Championships. The participants will look to improve further upon their performance from the previous season, which saw them register a record-breaking medal haul. A total of 19 Indian boxers, nine male and 10 female, will participate in the event. The team reached Dubai on Saturday after a delayed landing and some confusion over paperwork. The team is also without South Asian Games gold medalist Vinod Tanwar (49kg) after he tested positive for COVID-19. The tournament will undoubtedly serve as a good testing ground for the athletes ahead of the Olympics.
“This will give us a good sign as to where we stand before the Olympics and where we need to adjust. It would be good for us that way,” Indian men’s boxing’s High Performance Director Santiago Nieva said to news agency PTI.
“We always come to win. We know it will be a very tough competition with many nations featuring Olympic qualified boxers and many medal winners from the world championships. But we are confident that our team will bring home good results,” Nieva added.
From the men’s side, the charge will be spearheaded by defending champion Amit Panghal (52kg), last edition’s silver-medalist Ashish Kumar (75kg), and former medallist Vikas Krishan (69kg).
The women will have the six-time world champion MC Mary Kom, Simranjit Kaur (60kg), Lovlina Borgohain (69kg) and defending champion Pooja Rani (75kg). The four are Tokyo-bound.
All eyes will also be on Shiva Thapa (64kg) who will be looking to achieve his fifth successive podium finish.
India delivered its best ever performance at the Asian Boxing Championships in 2019 when the athletes brought home 13 medals, including two Gold, four Silver and seven Bronze. Expectations will be high this time around as well and those bound for Tokyo will look to gather some much-needed momentum ahead of The Games.
The boxers are also some of the Indian athletes who will get to participate in an overseas competition ahead of The Games. Several Tokyo-bound athletes have complained of being starved of international competition ahead of Tokyo. However, the boxers have a golden opportunity to test their mettle ahead of the Olympics.
