Why is Mohammad Ali Qamar — touted by the Indian Amateur Boxing Federation (IABF) just a few months back as India’s best Olympics medal hope — cooling his heels at home in Kolkata as four others train for the Olympics? His exit in the first round of the Karachi qualifiers 10 days ago, admittedly, was controversial. But why did he need the third qualifier in the first place? Why couldn’t he qualify from Philippines or China (the first two legs of Asian qualifiers)? Is he not good enough anymore — less than two years after his Manchester Commonwealth Games gold? There is no straight answer for these questions. But a combination of several factors like frequent changing of coaches, experts failing to point out his technical flaws at the right time and unimaginative planning. An official, on condition of anonymity, suggests it was a problem with the excessive IABF experimentation with coaches: ‘‘First, there was Cuba’s BI Fernandez for 10 years who took the boxers to Cuba to train. Then they hired a Bulgarian (Peter Stoyanov) who wanted them to train in Uzbekistan. He was fired after the Busan Asian Games and the national coach — Gurbaksh Singh Sandhu — took over. Now they want Fernandez back just before the Olympics.’’ Meanwhile, Sandhu and other officials point their fingers at everything from Qamar himself, plain dumb luck, and everything in between. IABF vice president Asit Banerjee opines that it was a problem with the strategising, saying, ‘‘Qamar absorbs punches close to his body. Others feint. But judges often miss things and award points to his opponents thinking the punches are landing on his body.’’ But why point this out so late in the day? Sandhu goes on to say, ‘‘His usual strategy is counter-punching. I had told him to attack more. But he couldn’t do it.’’ Again, isn’t this a case of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted? Sandhu created a huge fracas in Karachi after Qamar’s loss — when he was tied at 28 with his Japanese opponent but was declared loser by a judges’ count — even going to the extent of criticising Prof Anwar Chaudhary (President, International Boxing Federation), for Qamar’s loss. But did that make sense? Qamar contradicts Sandhu’s arguments, saying, ‘‘No one has ever asked me to change the way I fight. We have often discussed these things, but not a single person ever asked me to change anything.’’ Sandhu also says, interestingly, ‘‘Actually, he hasn’t improved much since the Commonwealth gold. I also feel the sting in his punch has gone away and also, maybe, he has been fighting for too long. And his age (26) is a bit high for lower weights (48kg).’’ How then was he the nation’s best medal hope? Is the fault Qamar’s alone then? Another official’s suggestion also points to the same, that Qamar — originally from a poor background — is not hungry anymore after earning enough from his achievements. But it appears that his decline is as much the administration’s fault. No one tried to improve him as he was being used as Indian boxing’s poster boy. When, apparently, they knew what needed to be done. He was not ‘protected’ either, made to take part in too many meets. Qamar agrees: ‘‘You need time off. I fought three big competitions last year (in Thailand, the Commonwealth and the Afro-Asian Games) and a number of smaller fights. And we were training throughout the year. There was no time to relax. You are tired but no one bothers about that.’’ The result: A serious, bright Indian Olympic medal hope has been frittered away. And we can all wait now for the next Qamar to come up from somewhere, because we obviously won’t do anything to create one.
