A silver and a couple of bronze medals is no small feat for a suspended country but India's junior and youth women's team coach I V Rao today said the medal count could have been much higher at the just-concluded World Championships if the nation had some official presence.
Back from Albena, Bulgaria, the Indian team had a bronze in the junior event and a silver and a bronze in the youth tournament.
The silver-medallist is a 17-year-old Nikhat Zareen (54kg), who claims to be the lone female boxer from her hometown of Nizamabad in Andhra Pradesh. The bronze medallists are Simranjeet Kaur (60kg, youth) and Asha Roka (48kg, junior).
Rao said most of the close decisions ultimately went against his wards and he felt that it had a lot to do with international suspension imposed on India last year.
"We didn't have any official support. We were allowed to participate but we could never complain or file a protest in case we felt that the decision should have gone our way," Rao said here.
"If the close decisions had gone our way, we could have easily clinched 2-3 more medals. Even some of opposition teams like Russia came to us after bouts and told us that some decision were hard on us," he added.
That apart, Rao said the competition was also tough, not to mention the new 10-point scoring system, which will take some time for the boxers to make adjustments.
"There were 33 countries and close to 300 boxers, the competition was very tough but our girls fought well and gave good performances," he said.
"The scoring system is different because it is like manual scoring and it no longer just about landing punches. The judges evaluate the boxers on movement, speed and ring-craft," he explained.
