Pugilists pack a punch, rewarded with boxing ring
Amritsar has finally got a boxing ring 44 years after the sport was introduced in the holy city. Taking a note of continuous remarkable performance of the Amritsar boxing team, the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) has rewarded the district with a boxing ring, as per the international standards.
A local boxing centre has produced over 300 national and seven international players in the last 20 years.
Baljinder Singh, who started coaching young boxers in 1999, was appointed a coach by the then Punjab Sports Director Pargat Singh in 2004-2005. Serving as an assistant sub-inspector (ASI) with Punjab Police, Baljinder imparts free training to youngsters.
Late Karam Singh of Sangrur, a boxing coach of the Punjab Sports Department, was instrumental in introducing boxing in the city in 1981. Later, Anil Sharma of the Sports Authority of India, besides Balkar Singh and GS Bhalla trained young pugilists.
Baljinder Singh was instrumental in starting boxing at Khalsa College in 2005-06. In last 18 years, the college team has remained champion at the inter-college competitions for 14 years and stood second for two years. The meet could not be held for two years due to Covid.
Baljinder, a former national-level boxer, started training students when the game was looked with suspicion for “training” youngsters for brawls and street fights, an image curated by Bollywood movies that were replete with such examples in 2000 biopics. So, middle-class families avoided sending their wards to train for boxing at Baljinder’s centre.
Cut to present, MTech and MBBS students are training under Baljinder, while several others are pursuing Master’s degrees. “My objective is to make students disciplined, boxing comes next. If a person is disciplined, he or she is bound to excel in life. The centre is imparting training to about 80 boys and 20 girls,” said Baljinder.
The players trained by him are earning accolades by claiming positions at the state and national-level championships and getting the boxing ring from the BFI as a reward. Over the years, around 130 boxers from the centre have secured jobs in various state and Central government departments and five have become Class 1 officers. After all, every boxer with the middle-class background aspires for a permanent job.
The 13-member Indian team to the 2024 Youth World Cup held in Europe included two players from Punjab — Snehdeep Singh (55 kg) and Vansh Sharma (75 kg).
In 2022, Chohan village’s Aasmeen Kaur, a class VIII student, won a bronze medal in the Sub-Junior (52-54 kg) Punjab State Boxing Championship.
The boxing team of Khalsa College Senior School created history by remaining champions for 24 consecutive years in the district school boxing tournament.
Of the 54 medals won by Amritsar at the All-India Inter-University competition, 49, including all 12 gold medals, were won by the centre.
Sukhraj Singh of the centre was declared champion at the 2011 All-India Inter-University meet. He is now serving with the Punjab Police. Rajpinder Singh, employed with the Railways, has won three gold medals at the inter-university meet.
Another trainee from the centre Daljit Kaur had won five medals, including two gold and three bronze medals, at the inter-university meet. She had also won two silver and one bronze medal at the Senior Women National Boxing championship. Talking about his target as a boxing coach, Baljinder Singh said, “Till date, only three boxers from Punjab have represented India at Olympics. I am hopeful that one of our players would be ready to represent Punjab in boxing by the year 2028.”
Amritsar