Why boxer Amit Panghal is in no mood to celebrate latest gold medal at Strandja Memorial

Why boxer Amit Panghal is in no mood to celebrate latest gold medal at Strandja Memorial

There wasn’t any jumping in the air or even a hint of a smile when the referee raised his hand. When a glum Amit Panghal won the gold medal at the Strandja Memorial, he had done what had to be done – an act that he has been monotonously carrying out since the Commonwealth Games.

Gone was the confidence and swagger of a man who had become the first Indian male boxer to win a silver medal at the World Championships. This Panghal was more like the one at the Tokyo Olympics, left crumpled in a heap after a shock defeat despite being the top seed in his weight class.

Since that crushing loss, he has only been part of one major event – the 2022 Birmingham CWG. Two World Championships and an Asian Games have since passed and the boxer has found himself sliding down the pecking order in relation to fellow army pugilist Deepak Bhoria.

“There is no meaning to me winning the (Strandja) gold or any medal. If they aren’t going to send me for competitions where I deserve to go, what’s the point?” said a desolate Panghal after landing back in India from Bulgaria.

The bone of contention for the Rohtak boxer continues to be the selection criteria for major tournaments and camps, as has been implemented by high-performance director Bernard Dunne and his team of foreign as well as Indian coaches. Rather than fixate on trials that decide the best boxers in a weight category, the Irishman has said that a regular assessment from coaches in camp is a better indicator of the best boxer in a weight category.

“The big part for us choosing this method was to give clarity to athletes. We were speaking to them about why we were doing what we were doing. Trials are only one moment when judges and referees sit down and select winners. Whereas with the system we’ve brought – in terms of assessment, we have the coaches and myself, who work day in and day out – and it’s not based on one moment but over a period of time,” Dunne had told reporters at the 2023 Women’s World Championships in New Delhi.

But according to 28-year-old Panghal, rather than clarity, it is the opposite that he has had over the past few years. Chief among his complaints is the lack of communication between the coaches and him about the evaluation process.

The evaluation is divided into different categories with each boxer being awarded a maximum of 10 points in each. The categories include attendance, weight management, international performance potential, strength and conditioning, health management and performance in training.

“I have not even been told where my points are low or where I lack. They don’t tell us the points from each individual section. We are just told the overall points at the end of the week. I have asked them many times to explain how they’ve given me the overall points, but I never get any answers,” Panghal told The Indian Express.

Exhausting all avenues

The three-time Asian Championship medallist also added that he had moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court before the Asian Games hoping for a judgement that would force the Boxing Federation of India to hold trials. But the petition was quashed by the court at the time due to its proximity to the Asiad.

“I tried to go through the route of the court previously but that was too close to the Asian Games. At this point, I have given up hope. Before the Olympic qualifiers team was being decided, I didn’t even try to put forward my case. If they didn’t listen the two times I came to them asking why I wasn’t being selected, what was the point now?” said the Tokyo Olympian.

While Panghal has languished outside the set-up in a way, Bhoria has benefitted from the new selection policy. The Haryana boxer has been a part of two World Championships and an Asian Games in this shortened Olympic cycle and his only losses have come to Tokyo Olympics silver medallist Saken Bibossinov at the 2021 World Championships second round, French boxer Billal Bennama at the 2023 World Championships semi-finals (Bhoria won the bronze medal) and Tomoya Tsuboi, a world champion in the 54 kg category, at the Asian Games in Hangzhou.

Also Read | Asian Games selections were biased, was made to feel unworthy in national camp, claims boxer Amit Panghal

In a way, this has been deserved for Bhoria, who was seen as the better boxer in their Army heyday. In 2017, at a Services competition, Bhoria beat Panghal but got knocked out in a later round. It put him in a three-month concussion protocol – one which allowed Panghal to progress as the face of the flyweights, reach the Asian Games and win a famous gold over Uzbekistan’s Hasanboy Dusmatov – the current flyweight World Champion.

“I have won the gold medal at the Asian Games and the silver medal at the World Championships. The boxers that I have beaten handily, he (Bhoria) has lost to them in this cycle. The boxer that I was dominating in training before the World Championships (2023) regularly, beat him at the Asian Games,” said Panghal, making it clear that he felt the gap between the two was not as it is being made out to be.

He added that his only hope of getting an opportunity would be if Bhoria was unable to secure a flyweight quota at the first Olympic qualifiers and he would be given the chance to go for the second of them in May.

But it’s that feeling of perceived unfairness that Panghal is unable to shake off. “If they (my teammates) were even close to my level, I could understand…,” trails off Panghal.

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