New Delhi: India’s chief men’s boxing coach C A Kuttappa says he cannot wait for the national camp to resume on June 10 after the COVID-19 forced disruption as he is not satisfied with the Olympic-bound pugilists’ fitness training at home.
The Boxing Federation of India plans to bring its Tokyo-bound boxers — both men and women — together in Patiala amid strict COVID-19 safety guidelines which bar access to ring and human sparring for now from June 10.
In a conversation with PTI, Kuttappa spoke about the challenges of training in the post COVID-19 world, admitting that he doesn’t know how it would be but is nonetheless looking forward to understand “the unknown”.
“They have been training at home but frankly, I am not satisfied. They are doing well with fitness training I guess but things like diet control cannot be managed at home,” Kuttappa told PTI.
“You need to be at the camp for these things to be monitored. Samne rahenge to hi pata chalega,” he said. The decision to restart the camp next month was taken at a video conference between the Olympic-bound boxers, coaches and the officialdom on Saturday. Kuttappa was part of that meeting.
“They (the boxers) sounded eager but obviously, these are challenging times. Let’s see how it goes. I think I will be able to give a better insight once we actually get started,” he said.
The nine boxers, who have qualified for the Tokyo Games are Amit Panghal (52kg), Manish Kaushik (63kg), Vikas Krishan (69kg), Ashish Kumar (75kg), Satish Kumar (+91kg), M C May Kom (51kg), Simranjit Kaur (60kg), Lovlina Borgohain (69kg), and Pooja Rani (75kg).
All of them have been training at their respective homes ever since the national camps came to a halt in mid-March owing to the virus outbreak, which has caused more than 3,000 deaths in India and wreaked havoc globally. (PTI)
