Chaos strikes opening day of Elite Boxing Nationals; women’s bouts deferred
Greater Noida: The country's senior boxers were left anxiously waiting for hours as chaos marred the opening day of the boxing National Championships, which was delayed by over four hours after the rings were not ready due to "logistical" issues here on Sunday.
The prolonged delay forced organisers to reschedule 32 women's bouts for Tuesday morning.
The tournament, meant to mark a landmark moment with the men's and women's national championships being staged together for the first time, was scheduled to begin at 2pm at the Gautam Buddha University.
Instead, confusion and prolonged waiting defined the day.
The competition rings, which are typically erected a day before the tournament, themselves were not ready. Three rings were scheduled to be in place, but only one was assembled by around 4pm and even that had to be reassembled due to a technical issue. In a bid to speed up the process, officials were seen working on building the ring themselves.
The first of the 80 bouts -- 38 women's and 42 men's -- finally got underway at 6:30 pm with the men's competition.
While, the women pugilists were left waiting even longer as there was still no word till 8pm. Eventually only six women's bouts were held.
"The delay was because of certain logistical issues," Boxing Federation of India secretary general Pramod Kumar told PTI.
Sources familiar with the matter, however, said it was a due to payment related issues.
"The vendor had not been paid. Work only began after the payment finally went through. There were no sponsors for the tournament either," a source said.
Reigning 48kg world champion Meenakshi Hooda, scheduled to fight in the opening bout in the women's section, was seen curled up on a yoga mat inside the hall late afternoon, conserving energy while waiting for word on when she would fight.
As the hours dragged on with no communication from organisers, she eventually left the stadium at 7pm.
Several other boxers tried to kill time, some plugged on their headphones, others paced the hall as hours ticked by with no announcement.
"Pata nahi kab shuru hoga, kuch bata bhi nahi rahe hain (We don't know when it will start, they aren't telling us anything)," a boxer from Uttarakhand said.
"Abhi toh bohot time lagega, ring bhi nahi set up hua hai (It will take a long time, the ring isn't even set up yet)," another boxer added.
Coaches warned that the prolonged delay could increase risk of injury as recovery would be hampered.
"Some boxers haven't eaten since breakfast because they were drawn for the early bouts. You can't fight on a full stomach, but this kind of uncertainty affects recovery and increases the risk of injury," a coach said.
Even the technical officials were left clueless.
"We are here since 12:30pm. We know nothing and we weren't even give the option to go back an rest till everything was set up," a technical official said.
Amit Panghal, Sagar make winning start
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The 2018 Asian Games gold medallist Amit Panghal of SSCB and Sagar of Haryana registered contrasting wins to advance in the competition.
Amit, featuring in the bantamweight category, dominated Usman Mohd Sultan of Bihar to get an unanimous decision.
In the heavyweight category, Sagar was made to work hard by Edwin of Kerala before managing to win by a split decision.
Lalrambuat of Mizoram was the other boxer to win by unanimous decision in the bantamweight category, beating Santosh Kumar of Odisha.
