Cuban coach back to coach Indian boxers

Patiala, Oct 4: It seems that the Indian Amateur Boxing Federation (IABF) has developed love-hate relationship with the affable Cuban boxing coach Blas Iglesias Fernandez.

Since May 1991, he has been sent back to Cuba six times and at regular intervals he has been called back to train and hone the skills of our boxers. "A coach requires at least three years to train the boxers and catapult them to peak form," Fernandez said during a training session with the boxers at the NIS here today.

After the Doha Asian Games, Fernandez is back in India after nine months. He arrived in India on September 27 when the boxers are two weeks away from the World Boxing Championship slated for October 21 to November 2 in Chicago, where about seventy countries will fight for top honours.

Fernandez does not have the magic wand to prepare the Indian boxers for World Boxing Championship in two weeks, the IABF aught to know better about this gloomy situation.

The World Boxing Championship in Chicago will be the first qualifying meet for Beijing Olympics. Nine Indian boxers are likely to participate in the Championship.

The second qualifying meet for Beijing Olympics will be in January 2008 in Bangkok, and the third such meet will be in March 2008 in Khazakistan.

To prepare the Indian boxers for the Olympic qualifying meets, five of the our best boxers will go to China on an invitation to participate in pre-Olympic boxing meet slated for November 22 to 28 in Beijing.

The chief national boxing coach, G S Sandhu and Fernandez have a perfect rapport and are working in tandem in the ongoing coaching camp here at the NIS.

The two coaches are hopefully that Indian boxers will do well in the forthcoming international boxing meets.

UNI