The aim is to win more than a single medal in Los Angeles: Nieva

Santiago Nieva, the former high performance director of Indian boxing, has returned as the head coach of the Indian women’s boxing team. After India returned empty-handed from Paris 2024, Nieva was hired by the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) with an aim to help the country win medals in Los Angeles 2028.

With India having some strong women boxers, who landed medals in the World championships in Liverpool and the World Boxing Cup Finals in Greater Noida this year, it will be interesting to see how Nieva guides them in the run-up to the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games in 2026 and the Olympics in 2028.

In an interaction with The Hindu, Nieva spoke about his priorities and plans. Excerpts:

What brought you back to India? And what extra can you bring to the table?

I always had a good relationship with BFI. When they reached out, they came with an interesting proposal. I got interested when we talked back and forth. In the end, I made a decision and wanted to come back. I enjoyed my stint in India (2017-22). The possibility was back now with less than three years for the Olympics. I like the project. I’m very excited to come back and try to get those Olympic medals. I think my experience in general, in international boxing, and also that I have good knowledge of Indian boxing from my previous experience will help me do a good job.

What’s the learning from your previous stint? And how different will your approach be this time?

Having spent five years in Patiala taught me a lot. So it should be much easier this time. The programme is much more developed now than it was in 2017 when I came for the first time. And also my experience and competence are also obviously higher now. I think it’s a good match. Hopefully, I will be able to contribute a lot more to Indian boxing.

Are we going to see some changes in the training pattern?

I don’t know any details of how the training was done before. First, I need to go there. India has had good results. So I’m sure there are a lot of things that have been done well. I have obviously my philosophy, my previous experience in India, my added work, which I did in Australia (before this). I’m sure there are many of those things that can be implemented. And I’m sure there are also a lot of things that are being done that we can keep.

The assessment process for the selection for the big events, are we going to see any changes?

Look, it’s not a one-man decision. I need to speak to the BFI. I have heard good things about the assessment. I haven’t seen it for myself, so it’s difficult to give an opinion. I need to see it for myself. I have always said that selection trials as the only way to select a team is very old school.

I think it’s outdated. It doesn’t mean that you can’t have a selection trial. But as the only way to select a team, I think it’s outdated. I’m interested in seeing this assessment. And I also think it’s not a big thing for me to select a team. That’s part of our job. As a coach, you need to be able to select the best team. Otherwise, you can’t be a coach. Nobody wants to go with the third-best or fourth-best boxer. We want to go with the best boxer. I’m confident that we can manage that.

Santiago Nieva
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What will be your approach for the immediate challenges, including Asian championships?

Obviously, we have a short time. When I get there, we will have finalised the National championships and there will be a short time to prepare for Asian championships and then for the Commonwealth Games. It will be a hectic first 19 months with many top competitions. But yes, we have also well-established boxers. They had a great year in 2025. I’m confident we will become well prepared for those competitions.

How are you going to approach LA 2028? Are you going to work on bench strength in certain weights?

I think the aim should be to qualify in all the weights. So I am pretty confident that we will have good enough boxers to be able to qualify in all the weights. Obviously, it will be difficult to qualify in all the weights, but that must be our aim.

And every single boxer should be good enough so that with a little bit of luck or good performance, they can win medals at the Olympics. So the aim is to win more than a single medal in LA.

Considering the limited options in heavier weights, do you have time to identify and work on new talent?

I have only seen the number one boxers. I don’t know what comes from the youth (programme). I have not studied that. I will have to find out for myself once we have the Nationals and we have the boxers in the camp and see what strength do we have. But I’m not very worried. I’m sure we will have a very competitive squad for 2028.

Can we expect a bigger role for the strength-and-conditioning (SnC) guys this time?

I have no idea what role they have had lately. I know that I brought in the first SnC. We had the first SnC course in 2017. I brought in SnC expert Rickard Nilsson, who came many times during two years. And then we had the first full time SnC with Dan Jefferson from Scotland, who worked with me for a couple of years.

So the SnC is an important part of high performance training and it needs to be getting a significant role. But I don’t know how it has been handled in the previous years. So I have no opinion on that.

What’s your plan for camps and tournaments? Are you going back to European countries or do you have different destinations in mind?

We’re going to strong tournaments. For many years now, especially since COVID, there have been less tournaments in Asia and many tournaments in Europe. But now, with these World Cup events, they’re back in Asia. So there is one World Cup event in China and another one in Uzbekistan. We have Asian championships.

So we are going where there are strong challenges and most of the tournaments are in Asia or in Europe. But we also now have Brazil, which is organising a World Cup event.

Sometimes we need to send boxers to smaller tournaments or developing tournaments. But otherwise, we want to participate in the strongest tournaments. Now we have these World Cup competitions, which is an interesting concept where we want to try to participate. But we have to see strategically what works best for us. If there are tournaments in Asia, usually we want to prioritise that. It’s less travel time. It’s many times cheaper. But sometimes there are more tournaments in Europe.

Published – December 08, 2025 12:13 am IST