When Gaurav Bidhuri lists out the people he credits for his bronze medal at the Boxing World Championships, he makes sure to include team physio Gaurav Ahluwalia. Over the last few months the 24-year-old has been suffering from an injury to the Sacroiliac joint in his lower vertebrae. It's an extremely painful condition that causes severe lower back and leg pain. "It is really hard for me even to lie down for long periods. But after each bout our physio would treat my injury and get me prepared for my next fight," says Bidhuri.
Bidhuri admits that his medal, only the fourth won by an Indian at the World Championships, would not have been possible without the constant attention given by Ahluwalia, who has been attached with the Indian team since this year. Ahluwalia was also instrumental in keeping Kavinder Bisht, a quarterfinalist in the 52kg division, in the fray even after the boxer injured his right elbow in his preliminary bout.
Prospects for both boxers would have been bleak had they been injured in a competition even a couple of years ago. Back then the Indian federation was banned. Teams were permitted to travel for competition but no exception was made for support staff like doctors or physiotherapists. Coaches would have to pack bandages and cold spray and try to treat cuts and bruises as best they could. Those were dark days for Indian boxing. A sport that had won medals at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics and a record haul of gold medals at the Asian and Commonwealth Games was slowly circling the drain towards irrelevance. Not a single gold was won at either the 2014 Asian or Commonwealth Games - something that had not happened since 1994. All the progress the sport had made over two decades appeared to have wasted away. The lack of international exposure and domestic competition meant the same boxers would retain their place in the national camp. All the while officials squabbled.
A new body eventually seized control of the game in India and has appeared to get it back on track. The first official National Championships were held in Haridwar (women) and Guwahati (men). There was a shakeup in the coaching staff and a new foreign coach was brought in. Yet it was unclear how long the sport would take to recover after four years of inaction.
India's result - a bronze medal and two quarterfinal spots - isn't something that will shake up international boxing. There were plenty of misses too. None of the other four boxers went past the second round. Yet there was enough in the performance to suggest the worst days of the sport might be behind it. "The big positive for us has been the performance of the new boxers in the team," says team coach SR Singh.
Singh is referring to Amit Panghal and Kavinder Singh, both 22, who reached the quarterfinal in what was their debut at the World Championships. "Initially, I thought that perhaps they would learn something from the seniors but it was the other way around. It's important that we have young players coming up. It keeps the senior players focused. They know that they too can be replaced."
Neither of the two boxers might have been part of the national camp had they not come through the national championships. "It was important to have the national championships. Amit came to the national camp after winning a gold in Guwahati. Even though Kavinder got cut and couldn't medal, his performance got him noticed. In my opinion we need to ensure that our best boxers continue to take part in the national championships. This isn't just to see if they are maintaining their standard but also to ensure even the new boxers are getting a good contest," Singh said.
Amit and Kavinder were part of an entirely new look national camp. Or rather camps. For the first time two simultaneous camps were held in Patiala and Aurangabad. Gurbax Sandhu, who had been at the helm of the men's boxing programme, took over the women's team. For SR Singh, who took over in Patiala, it was an opportunity he had to make count. "I last coached the national team during the 1989 Asian Championships. After that I was not considered by the Federation. So I was returning to the team after nearly 30 years. It wasn't just that the boxers have to prove themselves. Even I had been given a responsibility and I had to justify my selection," he says.
The new foreign coach - Argentinian Santiago Rivera - also brought new ideas. "Compared to the past, our training sessions are much shorter but more intense. Our gym work has changed too. We would use a lot of pulley machines. But coach Santiago has us train like weightlifters now. We do a lot of Olympic movements - snatches and clean and jerks. There are so many of us but he would still sit with each of us and teach us how to analyse our video footage too," says Bidhuri.
Bidhuri credits Rivera with helping him stay calm in the ring yet not alter his aggressive tactics. The insistence on not tampering with a boxer's natural game has perhaps been Rivera's greatest contribution so far - something he learned perhaps during his time with the Argentinian national program where he worked with the heavy-punching future world champion Marcos Maidana.
Bidhuri, who struggled with mediocrity for the previous five years of his international career, has enjoyed his most successful season this year. Apart from the Worlds medal, he also won a maiden international gold at the 48th Grand Prix Usti Nad Labem in Czech Republic.
International competition, which had dried up entirely, was revived once more. "We had good coaches in the past with Sandhu sir too, but we were limited by the kind of opportunities that we got. This year our boxers are being sent for international competitions very regularly. Before the Asian Championships, our team was sent to a camp in Kazakhstan. And before the World Championships we were sent to France and then also to a tournament in the Czech Republic. Our team is traveling with physios and doctors. This has helped our performance," says KC Kutappa, a coach with the national team.
It's not just the elite boxers who are getting these opportunities. "Our second and third string teams are also travelling for competitions. They have had camps in Ukraine and Mongolia and tournaments in Thailand too. Regular exposure raises their standard. So when our main team has sparring sessions they don't feel the quality of the opponents is low. It helps them prepare better too," says Kutappa.
The coaches feel the standard of competition inside the national camp is steadily rising to the point that there is little guarantee whether the same boxers who did well in Hamburg will keep their place in the national team in the future. "We have a national championship in another month. We are looking to get additional talent from there. We have not performed too badly in Hamburg but we have to keep improving. The Asian and Commonwealth Games will be test of where we are," says coach SR Singh.
It is a sentiment shared by Bidhuri too. "I can't relax just because I have won a bronze medal. I need to let my back recover right now but I can't rest. This performance is just the start. There is a very long way to go," he says.