NEW DELHI: India’s women’s boxing team head coach Santiago Nieva has said that arriving early in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar for the forthcoming senior Asian championships will help the contingent acclimatise to colder conditions and high-altitude training.
A 20-member squad of elite men’s and women’s boxers has made the Altan Shonkhor camp, located about 30 kilometres from Ulaanbaatar, its training base. The team took part in multi-nation joint sparring sessions with pugilists from Thailand, Jordan, China and Mongolia to gain early exposure to varied international styles.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!The Asian meet runs from March 28 to April 11. “One of the challenges has been adapting to different conditions, especially the higher altitude and much colder weather compared to India.
However, it has also been one of the most exciting aspects as it pushes the athletes out of their comfort zones,” Nieva said.“Training alongside international teams and maintaining high-quality sparring sessions has been a key highlight. Arriving early really helped. The camp has already completed two sparring phases. The structured approach to recovery periods was equally important,” the Swede added.Nieva said he expects a competitive tournament and pointed to Asia’s rise as the dominant force in world boxing over the past decade.
“We know we have a strong team but there are other strong nations as well. At the Olympics, we saw Uzbekistan’s men’s team and China’s women’s team emerge as the best.“So, we are coming in well prepared, ready to face the toughest opponents and hopefully walk away with many medals. We will try to get some gold,” he said.Recognising the long hours between training sessions, the support staff prioritised downtime, with a recent team outing to the Genghis Khan Statue Complex providing a mental break. “We’ve conducted team activities that require athletes to collaborate, think strategically and even outsmart each other,” he said.
