Nikhat, Lovlina still the best in India but can’t hold on to their past performances: Women’s boxing coach Chandralal
India concluded its campaign at the World Boxing Championships in Liverpool with two gold medals, a silver and a bronze — all won by the women’s team. It is a result that Chief Coach Dr D. Chandralal tells Sportstar he is satisfied with, if only as a stepping stone to bigger things, and for the fact that it shows Indian women’s boxing is still on firm ground.
However, the chief coach also sounded a warning bell for experienced boxers — two-time world champion Nikhat Zareen and Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist Lovlina Borgohain — both of whom finished outside the podium. Chandralal says that while they might have the credentials, that alone will not be enough to win medals at major competitions.
Q. What are you most satisfied with from the team’s performance in Liverpool?
We had a bad result at the Olympics, and what I’m happy about is that Indian women’s boxing is back in the limelight once again. We finished as the second-best women’s team of the competition. Even though our men’s team didn’t win a medal, it is because of the women that our combined result placed us third on the medal table.
Q. You were the coach when India won eight medals, including four gold medals, at the 2006 World Championships. Doesn’t that show that India has been successful in the past as well?
Although India has won many gold medals in women’s boxing before, this result is still important because we won in a competition in Europe. It is one thing to win multiple gold medals in India and another to win in your opponents’ home. Minakshi Hooda had to beat a local boxer to win her gold medal. We also had decisions go against us, which is to be expected when the judges are not ours and the conditions aren’t in our favour. Despite this, we still managed to do well. I don’t think anyone can take anything away from this particular result.
Q. You were brought in to work with this set of boxers four months ago. What do you think this result means for this women’s team?
One aspect is that we are back on the map. At the last Olympics, we were nowhere. The coaching plan, particularly for our women’s boxers, was terrible. We were ditched by the foreign coaches and not supported enough by our local coaches, either. We were using men’s coaches to train a women’s team, which should not have happened. They had very little experience working with women. This time around, I have a team that has experience working with women’s boxers. I’ve tried to prioritise discipline and focus. The women have performed even though they didn’t have the best build-up to the World Championships.
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The men’s team, for instance, had a national camp before the women because their national championships finished well in advance. Because of this, they also got the chance to compete at the Boxing World Cup in Brazil. We missed out on that because we didn’t have the women’s nationals until much later, which meant the national camp started late. I hadn’t been part of the setup at that point, but was called back by our president, and I insisted on bringing in my coaches, who I felt were of the right calibre.
I’m very happy for Pooja Rani because she hadn’t won a World Championships medal even though she’s been competing internationally for nearly 15 years.
We would have done even better, but some boxers didn’t join the camp right away.
Q.Why was that?
Nikhat and Lovlina joined the camp late, so they only got about 30 days of preparation before the Worlds. After the Olympics, neither of them participated in the National Championships (Nikhat said she had a knee injury, while Lovlina had to withdraw following a dispute between the state and national federations). As a result, they weren’t included in the camp initially. They then competed at a ranking competition in Andhra Pradesh, after which they came into the camp and, following an assessment, were included in the team for the World Championships. But we only had about 30 days to go for the Worlds, while the other girls had been training for four months.
Q. How would you analyse these two boxers’ performance at the Worlds?
They both have a lot of talent. They are undoubtedly the best in India right now, but there is immense competition in their weight categories (Nikhat competes in the women’s 50kg category, while Lovlina competes in the 75kg division). Neither of the boxers Nikhat and Lovlina lost to went on to win gold. Buse Naz Cakiroglu (who beat Nikhat) is a two-time Olympic silver medallist, but she lost to a boxer who didn’t even make it to the Olympics. Many international girls are excelling in these weight categories. In both these divisions, there are 8–10 equally good girls. Nobody is guaranteed a medal. If you want to contend for a place on the podium, you can’t hang onto your past performances.
When you have credentials, you, of course, have a lot of engagements. You will have to go for shoots and inaugurations. But you have to skip that. You have to concentrate on your training and preparation. Otherwise, things will not be good because there are many young athletes ready to take your place.
Q. Are you seeing any signs that these boxers are ready to make a course correction?
Nikhat is showing the right intentions. She is a very talented boxer. But it is up to both her and Lovlina. The next national camp is one month away. They will have to prepare for it. Everything is in place for them. Both of them are in TOPS (Target Olympic Podium Scheme). They both have private sponsors. If they have the will, they will find a way. But they have to prepare.
Q. You have had four months with this team. What do you feel needs to be done further?
I’ve made a few proposals to the federation. One is that I need two to three good coaches as substitutes for the staff. I want competent people on the coaching staff, and I think we can do better. I have also proposed that we bring in five to six junior men boxers from the Army Sports Institute in Pune to come into the women’s camp so they can serve as skill training and sparring partners.
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One major plan is to go to the Youth Nationals and select at least 10 boxers for the Senior camps. Right now, we are only getting the champions and medallists, but I think we are missing out on a lot of talent.
Q. Why is that?
We have a problem that our top youth boxers are not progressing well into the senior category. We had several girls who had been World Youth Champions, and now they aren’t even among the top two boxers in the senior camp.
We might be missing out on talent at the youth level. I have a theory on the physical attributes needed to succeed at the senior international level. Both our world champions are tall and rangy. I think they were the tallest in their weight categories. There is value in their height. I think if I go to the Nationals, I will see someone who has the physical attributes but who, for whatever reason, isn’t clicking at that age group. If they have the right physicality and mindset, it’s possible to groom them over the next few years. I am very certain that we will have to start making inductions from this category over the next few years.
Q. What are your other goals for the future?
My immediate priority is to fill out my income tax forms. I’ve been away from home for the past four months with the women’s camp. I’ve left my personal and family work behind to focus on this team. So, over the next few days, I will catch up on that. But after that, we have to prepare for the World Cup in New Delhi in November. There are a couple of weight categories where we might go for a change. We have tried some boxers twice, but they haven’t clicked.
After the World Cup, we will have to prepare for a very big 2026 season. We will have to concentrate on the weight categories that will be part of the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games, and after that, the Olympics.
Published on Sep 16, 2025