Since the Tokyo Games, Amit Panghal has had just one chance in total to qualify for the Paris Olympics.
That chance came when India had exhausted all other options and had no choice but to recall their World Championship silver medallist boxer from the unnecessary exile they had sent him into. His replacement after the Tokyo Olympics disaster, Deepak Boria, suffered an early exit from the Asian Games and an early exit from the world boxing qualifiers. Bernard Dunne, director of Irish High Performance, resigned after all Indian male boxers except Nishant Dev were eliminated in the first round of qualification. With less than two months to go until the Paris Olympics, common sense finally prevailed and gave Panghal his chance.
In his match against China's Liu Zhuang on Sunday, he was low on the scorecards from all but one of the judges after the first round. After three years, one of the better boxers India has produced in the past decade was finally in control of his destiny. Gone was the rustiness that had characterised his performances in those qualifiers and suddenly there was a boxer who had been the number one seed at the last Olympics. Given how it all fell apart in Tokyo, winning the all-important second round in Bangkok must have been therapeutic. Then the third round was closely fought but it was Panghal who convinced all the judges that it was him who was going to go to Paris.
It hasn't been an easy three years for the Rohtak-born boxer. Panghal was the Asian champion at the last Olympics and a world championship silver medallist, but that one defeat had eroded confidence in him. India's then high performance director, Santiago Nieva, stepped down, and so did Panghal.
“It was obviously a tough fight for Amit. All of us, including him, had high expectations from Tokyo. The best boxers in the world are coming to Tokyo and we knew it would be a close fight. It was a tough defeat to a world class boxer and it took some time for the defeat to sink in not only for us but also for Amit,” Neeva told The Indian Express.
It took time for Panghal to recover. Instead of boxing, he took up long-distance cycling with the Indian Sports Institute in Rohtak, in familiar surroundings. Meditation became a key tool to calm the boxer, who was anxious to return to the ring. Sports other than boxing became his mantra.
Outside that bubble, India chose to move on from Panghal. A new national coach, a new high performance director and their own ways became his latest opponents. Panghal could have returned in 2022, competed in the Commonwealth Games and won a gold medal, but was denied the opportunity to compete in two World Championships and the Asian Games this Olympic cycle. The reason given for him was the evaluation process for boxers devised by Bernand Dunn, which evolved from the Indian trials system. One of those evaluations concluded that one of the best boxers in the world was, at best, second-best for India.
Due to this neglect, Panghal slowly lost motivation. Initially, he tried his best to prove his worth to his coaches by sparring with Deepak Boria. When that didn't work, he had to take himself to court. However, at home, his elder brother continued to advise him to work harder and wait for his chance.
“Performance is everything you have “(Performance speaks for itself) so what do we need to say? If someone doesn't show faith in you, then you need to make a comeback,” his brother Hawaldar Ajay Panghal told the paper. “I always told him,It was our first time to be awarded an Olympic medal. “If you have the talent, your luck can always turn around and an Olympic medal will follow.”
When Boria missed out, the coaches were forced to select him for Bangkok. And that's when, instead of joining the national team at their camp in Thailand, Panghal and his longtime base coach Anil Dhankar went to BI Fernandes. Fernandes, once India's chief boxing coach, was then with the NBA in Rohtak. The Cuban spent a few weeks with Panghal, training the boxer, but Dhankar privately admitted that there was something else his boxer needed: confidence.
“Fernandez had asked Amit to fight eight to 10 rounds against some young boxers from Rohtak. He took it upon himself to help Amit. After all, he said that while Amit was training well, he just needed constant motivation going forward. In fact, even though the team had gone to Bangkok for training, Amit remained in India for a few extra days. It is now clear that that was the deciding factor,” Dhankar said.
