By Prarthana Hazarika, Senior sports journalist
Indian Boxing contingent ended a spectacular campaign at the Asian Boxing Championships in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, finishing with a massive 16-medal haul (5 gold). The Indian women’s team shone brightest, topping the medal chart with 10 medals, while the men secured six, including gold from Vishvanath Suresh (50kg).
Santiago Nieva, the High-Performance Director and Head Coach of the Indian women’s boxing team, is the man credited with this tactical evolution. The writer caught up with Santiago to understand about the team’s success in Mongolia.
Ques: You know the Indian boxers very well since you were with Boxing Federation of India (BFI) earlier, does that make your job easier now with your new term with BFI?
Santiego: Yes, absolutely having being with the BFI for five years previously, I know the environment. I was in Patiala so it becomes so much easier for me to knowing the coaches, how things work with some of the boxers and yes, I feel these factors have helped me a lot in this tenure with the BFI.
Ques: What changes did you bring in this time after you took charge?
Santiago: my philosophy and the work I do is similar to what I did before. We have to work hard, it’s important to do quality work and the structure to make everyone go in the same direction. The biggest difference is that I am in charge of the women team instead of men and also that both men and women train together in Patiala. It’s important to produce worldclass boxers from India and give results.
Ques: Your take on the Asian Boxing Championship 2026 in Mongolia?
Santiago: performance in Mongolia was amazing, obviously the girls emerged as a number one team with four gold medals, it was the best performance in modern history and the boys like Vishvanath Suresh outclassing some best boxers in their weight category. It was an overall great performance by the team and its very promising for the future for the upcoming Commonwealth games, Asian games we should do really well. We have to continue to prepare for big events and I am hopeful team will be able to win Olympic medals too.
Ques: Are you happy with the team’s performance?
Santiago: Yes, I am happy with the team’s performance, there were many tough bouts against renowned opponents where we could keep our composer and get the bout where we want to be. There are always things to improve on, not all boxers perform well but its normal we will get back and then continue to work hard and see where we can improve.
Ques: Which boxers stood out to you as the promising?
Santiago: Most of our boxers who have won are pretty young but some of them are very experienced though but obviously Vishvanath Suresh performed really well at this elite level, Priya Ghanghas didn’t have any international exposure of this magnitude but her winning four bouts against much more experienced boxers looks very promising.
Ques: Your take on Lovlina Borgohain and Ankushita Bodo’s performance? What changes have you seen in Lovlina Borgohain?
Santiago: Ankushita performed really well in her bouts, but she was extremely unlucky, her bout was stopped in the second round because of power cuts, she was down 3-2 in the first round and in the second round she was doing great landed some strong combination. To lose that way I think she was very unlucky.
Lovlina on the other hand was doing good in training in Spain, in the bout against world number 3 she couldn’t take the fight where she wanted it to be,it became a bit messy. We will have to look into those things we could have done better and improve from there. Lovlina will come back strong, she is doing great in previous competitions I have no doubts we will see a strong Lovlina in Commonwealth Games and Asian Games.
The Indian contingent finished second on the overall medal table with five gold medals trailing only Kazakhstan.
