The abrupt resignation of Indian boxing’s Irish high-performance director Bernard Dunne has thrown the Paris Olympics preparation into disarray. While no male boxer has qualified so far for Paris, the preparation of the four women boxers who have earned berths, including medal contenders Nikhat Zareen and Lovlina Borgohain, is a concern.
Boxing Federation of India (BFI) has said that the boxers will continue to train under foreign coach Dmitry Dmitruk, who was brought in by Dunne and has not quit.
From making detailed training plans to charting the daily routine of boxers, Dunne handled everything. The training methods too had changed drastically under him, with focus more on shorter sessions, be it high intensity or light, with a big part of training focused on recovery.
Dunne even shifted training sessions from early morning to mid-morning and evening. Rest days were not fixed and depended on how intense the sessions were. Even if the boxers wanted to do extra pad work after training, they had to inform Dunne. His philosophy was that each aspect — sports science, nutrition, strength and conditioning, physiology and psychology — needs to come together for a peak high-level performance.
“He was very particular about the training load of each boxer and used to monitor everything personally,” said a national camp coach who did not wish to be named.
Dunne preferred to have a small group of boxers in the camp because he wanted to give focused attention. In a short time of 16 months, the results were impressive. Four gold medals came at the women’s world championships followed by three medals at the men’s world championships, besides four Olympic quotas (all women) and three medals at the Asian Games.
The big disappointment though was the performance of the men’s team, especially at the recent Olympic qualifiers where they did not manage any berth.
“His training methods were new for our boxers. They were getting used to it. For any new system to develop it takes time, it was not that there was no performance under Dunne. The team did well at the world championships and Asian Games,” added the coach.
Dmitrij is unlikely to bring in many changes, but the big question is about the micro-managing by Dunne during his term. A bigger question is the selection process, in which Dunne played a crucial role. Will trials be re-introduced or the evaluation in the camp put in place by the Irishman continue?
More importantly, four women boxers have qualified for Paris and their training should not suffer. Two-time world championships medallist Nikhat Zareen and Olympic medallist Lovlina Borgohain are considered medal contenders. A different plan is needed for the four while the rest of the squad prepares to win quota places from the last Olympic qualifiers in Bangkok from May 23-June 4.
“We don’t know what is happening. You need to have a very focused approach for those who have
qualified. You can’t just carry them along with the rest of the team for training wherever you go. These are crucial four months for them and the boxers are concerned how things will pan out,” said a person aware of the developments in the camp.
“BFI has completely mishandled the situation. There is no good technical trainer in the camp.
Why can’t BFI call some young coaches under whom these girls have given good results at youth level? They are enterprising, dedicated and tuned to the current methods of training.”
It was learnt that some of these boxers might ask for individual trainers to prepare, depending on the new setup at the national camp in the next few days.