India will host South Asian boxing Championship in Dec: BFI

India is set to host the South Asian boxing Championship for the first time in Guwahati from December 6 to 10, Boxing Federation of India (BFI) said on Tuesday.

"It was also announced that India for the first time will be hosting the South Asian Championship from December 6th-10th in Guwahati and India International Open tournament, New Delhi in the third week of January for the elite men and women during the fifth executive committee meeting of the federationw hich was attended by BFI executive committee members and waschaired by the President Mr. Ajay Singh," BFI said in arelease.

India will take on their arch-rivals Pakistan during the tournament, which will also see a host of other SAARC countries participating including Afghanistan, Sri Lanka andBangladesh amongst others.

The international tournament will see countries like Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine among other top boxing nations participating. BFI, which completed one year of its existence, has locked the national calendar well in advance to give chance to the boxers to prepare well.

The first tournament will be the elite men championship taking place in Vishakhapatnam from October 23rd-30th followed by junior women in Rohtak in the first week of November. 

With PTI inputs

Sub junior men and women will be seen proving their mettle from December 12th-20th in Pune. The elite women will pack a punch from December 18th-24th in Trivandrum, whereas youth men will vie for glory in the week of January inPunjab.

The executive committee also outlined the federation'sdecision to streamline the qualification criteria for the coaches, referee judges (RJ). All the coaches and RJs henceforth will have to make compulsory participation in the state level tournaments as part of the qualification criteria for internationaltournaments.

BFI will also be for the first time initiating a grading system as well on the lines of AIBA's star ratingqualifications for coaches, referee judges. BFI also announced that Capt. G Manoharan will beresponsible for the Youth Men's team; Bhaskar Bhatt will be incharge of the Youth (Women) squad and MS Dhaka will be incharge of junior men.

It was also announced that RK Sacheti has unanimously been elected as the new Executive Director of the federation.