NBA set for categorisation of boxers

HIMALAYAN NEWS SERVICE

KATHMANDU: The newly-elected Nepal Boxing Association (NBA) today made public its plans and programmes that include eight national tournaments for the new calendar year and the launching of players’ categorisation.

The new calendar year will begin with the Novice Boxing Championships (men’s and women’s) set for July 25-28. The tournament will be participated in by amateur boxers and will be a selection tournament for the AIBA Youth World Boxing Championships, informed NBA general secretary Deepak Gurung during a press conference here today. The AIBA event will be held in Bangkok on October 17-25.

The other programmes included Junior, Sub-Junior and Senior Championships. “We are yet to finalise the dates for these tournaments, while a couple of other events are still in the pipeline,” added Gurung. He informed that the respective five development regions will organise one tournament in a year with the NBA organising national events.

For the first time in its history, the NBA will hold selection tournaments in every six or 12 months to determine boxers into A, B and C categories. Further, the A grade boxers will be classified according to their weight categories and get monthly allowance, life insurance and foreign training facilities.

NBA president Rajiv Shrestha said his committee was committed in developing the sport from grassroots for which the sport’s governing body would be working accordingly. “We will target schools and colleges by giving various presentations on boxing, provide the interested students with a three-month training package and host tournaments among the trainees,” he said.

“The programme will help identify more talents in boxing apart from producing number of future stars. We will make this programme widely effective by making the district associations more active,” added the president. Shrestha said the NBA was planning to make a well facilitated training hall for which it has already began working.

“We have already submitted the design to the National Sports Council (NSC). Through NSC, we have asked the government to provide us with a land in Mulpani. Once we get a go ahead from the government, we will start working on operational level,” he said. The NBA has sought Rs 33.6 million from the government for the construction of the training hall apart from Rs 15.2 million for tournament and training programmes.

“We are planning to host the first South Asian Boxing Championships next year and it will cost us more if we are to materialise our plans of constructing the training hall. Relying on our own resources will not be enough,” said Shrestha.