New Delhi, Dec 27: Indian boxing endured a deeply unsettling 2025 with the administrators locked in bitter courtroom battles before the men and women who actually exchange blows for a living salvaged the year through the emergence of two new world champions in Jaismine Lamboria and Minakshi Hooda.
The year began on an unusually dull note with boxers absent from most international competition in the aftermath of a medal-less Olympic campaign.
Behind the quiet, however, the sport was being consumed by internal strife within the Boxing Federation of India (BFI).
Selection plans were stalled, national championships were disrupted, national coaching positions lay vacant and overseas exposure took a hit as rival camps within the federation locked horns, leaving athletes caught in the crossfire.
Election chaos and court battles
The crisis centred on the BFI elections, which was due before February 3 but ended up repeatedly delayed.
This also prompted the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) to appoint an ad-hoc committee to run the federation. The move was termed illegal by the BFI and was later stayed by the Delhi High Court.
Soon allegations of abuse of power, financial misconduct and relentless turf wars inside the federation surfaced.
The Ajay Singh-led BFI suspended secretary general Hemanta Kalita and treasurer Digvijay Singh over alleged financial irregularities, triggering legal challenges.
Amid the turmoil, former sports minister Anurag Thakur was backed to challenge Singh for the president’s post, but his candidature was rejected after a controversial March 7 directive, issued by Singh, that ruled him ineligible for the electoral college.
Thakur’s faction — the Himachal Pradesh Boxing Association — approached the courts as did the Delhi unit, whose chief’s name was omitted from the electoral college on similar ground.
Both challenged the legitimacy of the directive.
What followed was a prolonged and ugly power struggle. The mud-slinging reached such a point that even the Returning Officer resigned, citing a smear campaign against him.
The turmoil had direct consequences on the boxers. The senior women’s National Championships, which were to be held in November 2024, were repeatedly postponed.
They were eventually held under a cloud of controversy in March. Several state units, including that of Madhya Pradesh and Assam, barred their boxers from participating.
The tussle forced Tokyo Olympics bronze-medallist Lovlina Borgohain, who hails from Assam, to withdraw her name.
World Boxing, the sport’s global governing body, stepped in to form an interim committee, appointing Singh as chief, to oversee the BFI’s affairs as the elections continued to be delayed due to legal wrangling.
Under the World body’s order, the interim committee amended the BFI constitution and the March 7 directive was made a clause, prompting rival factions to once again seek judicial intervention.
The deadlock broke in August when Singh was re-elected BFI president for a third consecutive term despite ongoing legal cases.
But both the IOA and the Sports Ministry refused to send observers for the election, raising questions over its legitimacy.
Even after the new body was elected, dissent has simmered. Some state units claim to have moved a no-confidence motion against Singh, challenging the validity of the amended constitution.
Singh dismissed the claims, stating that several of the same members had also signed documents reaffirming their confidence in him.
Two new world champions
Once the focus returned to competition, Indian boxers found their feet in the ring.
New national coaches were appointed — Dharmender Yadav for the men’s team and D Chandralal for the women’s side.
The Indian contingent returned with respectable results from the Brazil and Kazakhstan legs of the World Boxing Cup.
However, participation across the events was limited as World Boxing, having secured IOC recognition only earlier in the year, worked on setting an international calendar.
The standout moment of the year came at the World Championships in Liverpool, where Jaismine (57kg) and Minakshi (48kg) clinched gold medals.
Pooja Rani (80kg) and Nupur Sheoran (80+kg) added to the glory with a bronze and silver respectively, reaffirming India’s growing strength in women’s boxing.
The picture was not entirely rosy though.
Established stars like Nikhat Zareen, who returned after a long injury lay off, and Borgohain failed to deliver the performances that were expected of them.
It is also worth noting that, barring Jaismine’s title, the other podium finishes came in non-Olympic weight categories, where the competitive field was comparatively thinner.
In Jaismine, however, India appears to have found a boxer with a genuine shot at Olympic glory in 2028.
Consistent across the season, she defeated Paris Olympics silver-medallist Julia Szeremeta of Poland in the Worlds’ final.
The men, on the other hand, endured a humbling low at the Worlds, returning without a single medal for the first time in 12 years.
But there were signs of promise.
Youngster Abhinash Jamwal showed he could thrive at the elite level after stepping out of Shiva Thapa’s shadow, while Sachin Siwach and Pawan Bartwal also displayed potential.
India hosted the much-hyped season-ending World Cup finals where the hosts enjoyed overwhelming success, finishing with a record haul of 20 medals, including nine gold.
But it was not reflective of a great performance as the draws were thin, the top ranked boxers skipped the tournament while in heavyweight categories podiums were awarded just for participation.
Soon after the event, the return of former high-performance director Santiago Nieva, this time as women’s team head coach, was announced, marking the start of an interesting new chapter.(PTI)
