Chefs may tour with boxers to address food issues

NEW DELHI: Despite Indian boxing fast emerging as a marquee sport, the boxers continue to face food issues at competitions abroad. It was to the credit of Amit Panghal, Pooja Rani and Co. that they returned from the Asian Boxing Championships in Bangkok with a record haul despite being on just a rice diet for their sustenance during the event.

The boxers won 13 medals – 2 gold, 4 silver and 7 bronze, the highest-ever return for India at the championship; but with a majority of the country's boxers hailing from Haryana, Punjab, Uttarakhand and western Uttar Pradesh, they were without their staple cereal, wheat, in the preferred form of roti.

The boxers complained to the Boxing Federation of India^[4] (BFI) that they couldn't get daal-roti-sabzi during the tournament. The boxers from Haryana and Punjab relied a lot on fruit intake. Besides, with many from the contingent being vegetarians, they raised the issue of not getting "proper" vegetarian food during the event. Narender Nirvan was the manager of the 20-member Indian contingent.

Realising this peculiar yet familiar problem, the BFI is looking for a solution. "We are planning to provide our players chefs to accompany them for future tournaments,” BFI president Ajay Singh told TOI.

Elaborating further, the BFI president said, "Our boxers went to the Asian Championship and the meal programme was completely different from what they are accustomed to. For example, they were getting rice for every three meals – rice at breakfast, lunch and dinner. They are not used to this."
He added: "We have to make sure that we are able to look after this aspect in the future. If we can send such a large contingent, there is no problem in sending chefs along too."
Among the medallists, Pooja Rani, Amit Panghal, Deepak Bhoria, Ashish Chaudhary, Manisha Moun, Sonia Chahal, Satish Kumar and Ashish Kulheria come from Haryana, while Kavinder Singh Bisht hails from Uttarakhand and Simranjit Kaur is from Punjab.
The BFI president stressed that the federation was keen that the boxers focused completely on their game alone and were not distracted by these peripheral issues.
^[1][2][3]

References

1. ^{^} boxing (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
2. ^{^} Amit Panghal (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
3. ^{^} Asian Boxing Championships (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
4. ^{^} Boxing Federation of India (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)

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