Amit Panghal In Focus As Indian Boxers Fight In Final Qualifiers For Paris Olympics

Indian pugilists will be determined to overcome the recent setbacks both inside and outside the boxing ring when they aim for the last available tickets to the Olympic Games at the second World Qualification Tournament, starting on Friday. Up until the last qualifying event, Indian boxers had four quotas but in an unprecedented embarrassment, that number is now down to three after women's 57kg holder Parveen Hooda was handed a 22-month ban for whereabouts failure this month. The boxers' performance at the previous world qualifiers in March was dismal to say the least with only 2023 World Championship bronze medallist Nishant Dev moving past the opening round.

This also triggered a coaching crisis. High Performance Director Bernard Dunne handed his resignation during the first World qualifier itself.

"From the Thailand qualifiers, we definitely hope to clinch 4-5 quota places and we are hoping for the best. This time we have a definite chance," Indian boxing coach CA Kuttappa told SAI Media ahead of event here.

The Boxing Federation of India (BFI) has made several changes with India's lone male World Championship silver-medallist Amit Panghal finally back in the mix after Deepak Bhoria failed to win a quota in the first two qualifying events in the 51kg category.

Panghal is coming off a gold-winning run at the prestigious Strandja Memorial tournament earlier this year. He will have only one shot at making the Olympics and the former Asian Games champion will look to make the most of it.

Panghal has been seeded second in his category and is likely to have a quarterfinal face-off either with Liu Chuang of China or Anvarzhan Khodzhiev of Kyrgyzstan after receiving a first-round bye.

India have fielded a total of 10 boxers,