'Teams for Paris Qualifiers should be picked via trials'

Tokyo Olympian boxer Simranjit Kaur is not known for holding back her punches in-and-out of the ring. On Wednesday she may have considered herself a bit unlucky to have lost to Jaismine Lamboria in the final (60kg) of Women’s National Boxing Championships here, but there were sufficient signs to show she was close to recapturing her form well in time for the Paris Olympics Qualifier in February.

- Avishek Roy

The only thing she would have hoped to change is the selection process. For a year now, Indian boxing teams for major international competitions are being selected on the basis of an evaluation process in the national camps but the new system continues to be a talking point among boxers. The change was brought about by High Performance Director Bernard Dunne who has done away with the age-old practice of selection trials.

“I think most boxers will favour trials to the current system of weekly assessment in camps,” said Simranjit Kaur, who lost to CWG medallist Jaismine in the evaluation for the Asian Games.