Priya Ghanghas and Preeti Pawar signal a golden era for Indian boxing

Even at the age of 10, Priya Ghanghas knew she wanted to pursue sport. Any sport. Her father Mahendra had been a kabaddi player, and Priya was fascinated with wrestling, but boxing was impossible to escape. Vijender Singh’s bronze at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, India’s first in the sport, put Haryana’s Bhiwani district that Ghanghas hails from, on the map. Her own village, Dhanana, produced two world champions—Sakshi Ghanghas and Nitu Ghanghas.

“I was always interested in sports, but it was not that I wanted to take up boxing only,” says the shy 20-year-old. “I wanted to wrestle. There was no wrestling centre in Dadri, but we found a boxing academy and I started in 2016. Vijender’s medal inspired us all.”

Last week, Priya Ghanghas earned international success of her own to join the list of illustrious boxers from Bhiwani. Competing in her first major tournament, she beat former world champion Chengyu Yang in the quarterfinals, and defeated DPR Korea’s Un Gyong-won in the final to win gold in the women’s 60kg class at the Asian Boxing Championships in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

The gritty performance by its youngest member was a flex for the Indian women’s contingent, which topped the leaderboard at the Championships. India finished with 10 medals—four gold, two silver and four bronze—at least one medal in each of the seven weight categories included in the 2028 Summer Olympics to be held in Los Angeles. While established names like Nikhat Zareen and Lovlina Borgohain claimed bronze, it was the younger generation that took charge. World champion Minakshi Hooda, 24, dominated the 48kg category again, Preeti Pawar, 22, scooped gold in 54kg while Arundhati Choudhary, 24, topped the 70kg class.

“We are very happy. Obviously, this is not our main goal but Asia is the strongest continent nowadays, with Olympic medallists, world champions competing in this,” said India’s head coach Santiago Nieva from the Mongolian capital.

“We have had plenty of success in the past. But yes, if you look at it finally, sometimes the success has come at home, or it has come in non-Olympic weights. But in this tournament, we had a very strong presence with three gold and one silver in the Olympic weights, which shows that we are a force to be reckoned with. Hopefully we can replicate this, even improve on this at the upcoming Asian Games and ultimately the Olympics.”

India has had a strong presence in women’s boxing, ever since M.C. Mary Kom set the bar with her bronze at the 2012 London Games where women’s boxing made its debut. It may seem at odds with India’s deeply patriarchal society, but these young women, a lot of whom wear their hair short and throw their punches sharp, continue to challenge stereotypes. Nieva, an Argentina-born Swede who was the high-performance director for Indian boxing from 2017-21, returned to coach the women’s team last November and is impressed by their aptitude.

“They understand boxing,” he adds. “They know how to manage the situation. We can tweak some things here and there. But the main thing is they go up in the ring, and they know what they’re doing.”

Despite fanfare surrounding the Indian women’s boxing team, they finished without any medals at the 2024 Paris Games. Stung by the Olympics letdown, it has taken the team time to regroup and redefine their goals.

“It took me a long time to recover after the Olympics,” says Pawar, who lost in the round of 16 in Paris, a day after securing gold at the Asian Championships.

“Though we tried our best we did not get results during the Olympics. Also, I contracted hepatitis during the Olympics, because of which I struggled. It took a lot of time to recover, around five-six months. It was very challenging to get back to my peak since I had lost a lot of strength during the illness. There have been changes. Technical changes but also the team environment, bonding has improved.”

Pawar had one of the toughest draws at the Asian Championships. She overcame Paris Olympics bronze medallist Aeji Im of Korea in the semi-final, then defeated three-time world champion Chinese Taipei’s Huang Hsiao-Wen by unanimous 5-0 verdict in the final to secure gold.

“Since Olympics, this is one of the biggest tournaments I have competed in,” she says. “I played the World Cup (World Boxing Cup Finals in India in November), but it was at home so it wasn’t as unnerving.”

While the players have individually fought off disappointments and demons, the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) has also opted for a system reboot. Just before the Olympics, they had brought in place an evaluation process for the boxers that did away with the national trial ahead of major competitions.

“The evaluation process we follow is structured, transparent, and aligned with established norms,” says BFI executive director, Col. Arun Malik (retired).

“It is designed to assess athletes on their current form and performance within the camp environment, rather than relying solely on past results. Sparring sessions are recorded and form one part of a broader assessment framework, which also includes key parameters such as skill, strength, and conditioning.”

The logic was to reward consistent effort rather than a one-off trial. It was also to ensure that boxers maintain a baseline according to their category and not employ drastic weight-cutting measures before the trials and then again before the competition. A more level playing field gives younger players a fair chance and shakes established names out of complacency. The boxers have now adapted to the new system and results are starting to show.

After an impressive performance at last year’s World Championships in Liverpool, UK, where they won two golds in women’s boxing, India aced the continental test as well. While the younger players are keen to make a mark, they are also aware of the lineage, with the success of the predecessors and peers not just inspiring but also rubbing off on them.

“We have seen players like Mary Kom, Nikhat Zareen and Lovlina Borgohain win medals on the big stage, and we want to do the same, prove we can carry that legacy,” says Pawar. “When we go abroad for tournaments, people ask us about Mary didi or Nikhat didi and it feels nice that people know them, admire them. They talk to us a lot. Before the final, Nikhat didi spoke to me, she told me, ‘You have beaten the world champion before, play freely, don’t think about the opponent too much.’”

Boxing is unmistakably an individual sport, revelling in its one-on-one intensity, but India’s sustained success in women’s boxing feels more of a team effort, with coaches, physios, trainers and seniors all playing their part. After the Championships, the team celebrated the hefty medal haul together.

“The entire team went to an Indian restaurant to celebrate,” says Ghanghas.

Their appetite whetted by the success at the Asian Championships, the team now has bigger prizes ahead this year—Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, UK and Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya in Japan.

Deepti Patwardhan is a sportswriter based in Mumbai.