Amit Panghal has to get it in his mind that he is no longer our star boxer: BFI chief Ajay Singh

Back home, the boxers were felicitated at the Capital by the Sports Authority of India and Boxing Federation of India (BFI) on Wednesday. TOI caught up with BFI president Ajay Singh in an exclusive conversation on different issues related to Indian boxing. Excerpts…What is your fair assessment about what went wrong at the Tokyo Olympics?Before Covid hit us, we were doing exceptionally well.

At the Commonwealth, Asian… any global level championship. A part of what went wrong at the Olympics was due to the lack of preparation due to the Covid. We first tried to train in India under a lot of restrictions.

Then we tried and sent them overseas just before the Olympics. I think there was a gap in that entire process. Also we had peaked the year before.

The entire plan of the federation was to make our top boxers peak for 2020. The Olympics never happened in 2020. I know we got one medal in Tokyo, my fair assessment is we at least should’ve got two more medals.

How do you handle a boxer like Amit Panghal, who has won a world championship silver but failed miserably at the Olympics, so that he is in the right frame of mind for future championships?Simply, he has to get it in his mind that he is no longer our star boxer. No more the star status. You are there with everybody, and you box with everybody.

I hope there is an increased amount of competition in his weight category. There is Deepak (Hooda), he is excellent. From my perspective, send Amit for one tournament and then send Deepak for the next.

They’ve to go side by side. Both have to keep on fighting each other. From now onwards, there will be trials for everyone.