'Time to bring in Olympic medals': Coach Santiago Nieva returns with a blueprint to ensure podium finish for Indian boxers

NEW DELHI: Boxing coach Santiago Nieva returns to Indian women’s boxing with what he calls “tremendous energy”, and a clear mission. In an interview with TOI, Nieva outlined his philosophy for the road to 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Excerpts...

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You were with men’s boxing in your previous stint in India, why did you choose the women this time?
I’m super excited, coming with tremendous energy. Hopefully, I can do good work and get the desired results. Indian women boxers are already doing pretty well, and they’ve great potential. Now it’s time to transfer the potential into Olympic medals. I had great results with the Australian women, winning medals at the Olympics, gold at world championships. I am confident I can do a good job with the Indian women too.




Indian boxers have done well this year. Are we on the right track?
There were four medals at the world championships in Liverpool, but only one in the Olympic weights — Jaismine’s gold in the 57kg. We need to be very strong in the Olympic weights. That’s my priority. There is no question that the Indian team is considered as one of the strongest in the world. But we also know that China is very strong. Asia is very strong in general. So, we need to be better than our competition.

Is there a roadmap, blueprint that you have prepared?
We need to have systematic, organized training of high quality. I was in India for five years and I think I had great success with the work I did. When I came to Australia, it worked the same or even better maybe. So I’m confident that I can adapt to the Indian environment once more. Of course, there are changes here and there, things evolve. It cannot be the same in 2025 or 2026 like it was in 2017.

Indian boxers are inconsistent in world championships and Olympics. Can there be competition periodization?
We need to make sure that we have plenty of boxers who are really good at the highest level. So that if someone gets a bad draw, or someone loses due to wrong decision, someone doesn’t perform, we still have enough good boxers to win medals. That’s the way we had Lovlina’s medal in Tokyo, when Amit (Panghal) didn’t win a medal, Mary Kom didn’t win, Vikas didn’t win, boom, Lovlina was good enough to win a medal! So if we do a good job, we will have plenty of boxers who can qualify, and those who can are good enough to win medals.

You were never a fan of trials...?
My philosophy is that the coach should be able to pick his team. But the more teams started training with full-time programmes, training together, it lost purpose of going for a trial because the coaches see the boxers every day in training. And then you realize that international competitions play a big role because you want to see how they fare against other international boxers. We need to select the No. 1 boxer.

What is your expectation this time around?

My aim is that when we go into a world championships, we win three or four gold medals. And I want to do the same in the Olympics.


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