New Delhi: Commonwealth Games medal-winners M Suranjoy Singh and L Devendro Singh, whose stellar boxing careers were cut short by injuries, have been roped in as men’s coaches by the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) ahead of this month’s World Championships.
The 29-year-old Devendro and the 35-year-old Suranjoy are among 14 coaches that have been short-listed for the national camp in Patiala. The BFI-run camp will start this week. The World Championships, featuring over 600 boxers from more than 100 countries, begins on October 24 in Belgrade, Serbia.
The other prominent names in the coaching staff are head coach Narender Rana, former junior coach MS Dhaka, the seasoned Dharmendra Yadav and former boxers Diwakar Parsad and Torak Kharpan among others. The information was given Monday by BFI Secretary General Hemanta Kalita.
Interestingly, both Suranjoy and Devendro have trained under Dhaka at the junior level.
Suranjoy is a gold-medallist from the 2010 Commonwealth Games and the 2009 Asian Championships. Devendro, on the other hand, won a silver medal in the CWG and made the pre-quarters of the Olympic Games in London, 2012.
Suranjoy had been named an assistant coach in 2017 as well but he could not accept the position due to some personal issues.
“The last time I was named, there were family problems, abhi sab theek hain, join kar lenge (now everything is okay and I will join),” the Manipuri, who won a sensational eight consecutive international gold medals during a stupendous run from 2009 to 2010 before a knee njury hampered his career.
“The World Championship is going to be a challenging assignment given that the weight categories have been rejigged but we are up for it, and hopefully we can get some good results,” Suranjoy added.
Devendro, a World Championships quarterfinalist is excited as well.
“I finally get a chance to put to use what I have learnt for all these years, I hope I can make it count. It is an honour,” said the soft-spoken Manipuri, whose eye sight problems and a debilitating knee injury ensured an early end to his career as a boxer.
Devendro completed his coaching diploma from Patiala’s National Institute of Sports in 2020.
As was expected, the five boxers who represented India in the Tokyo Olympics – Amit Panghal, Manish Kaushik, Vikas Krishan, Ashish Kumar and Satish Kumar – are not a part of the World Championship camp after they skipped the Nationals. Of these, Vikas and Ashish had injuries.