Nieva Targets Early Olympic Qualification After India Women Boxers' Strong 2026 Campaign

India's women's boxing team is already looking ahead to the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, with national head coach Santiago Nieva targeting early qualification after a highly successful 2026 season.

The Indian women boxers returned from the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya with three medals, including two gold, after an equally impressive campaign at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, where they secured six medals, five of them gold.

Nieva is keen to use the first available Olympic qualification opportunity at the 2027 World Championships in Kazakhstan to secure as many quotas as possible.

"The first qualifier will be in Kazakhstan, which is the World Championships, where ideally we get as many quotas there as possible," Nieva told SAI Media. He added that the qualification pathway would later include the Asian Olympic Qualifier and two further Olympic qualifying events in 2028.

According to Nieva, securing Olympic places early would give the boxers more time to focus specifically on preparations for the Games rather than carrying qualification pressure into the final stages of the cycle.

"Ideally, if we get to qualify next year early on, we get a good preparation time," he said. "It will be a tough pathway, and hopefully we can qualify as many boxers as possible so we can form a strong team for the Olympics."

The results achieved in 2026 have highlighted the progress of India's women's boxing programme under Nieva. He previously served as High Performance Director of Indian Boxing from 2017 to 2021 before returning to the national set-up in 2025.

Nieva attributed the team's consistency to sustained preparation involving international exposure, domestic training camps and quality sparring. A significant part of the programme was conducted at the Sports Authority of India's National Centre of Excellence in Patiala, where the coach said the wider support system had contributed to the boxers' development.

"We have a staff of 40 people working with the boxers, around 20 coaches and another 20 support staff," Nieva said, pointing to improvements in areas such as sports science, training facilities and boxing equipment.

He also said India's overall support structure compares favourably with boxing programmes in other countries.

The team's preparation extended beyond India as well. Squads from the Dominican Republic and Iran trained alongside the Indian boxers in Patiala before the team travelled to Japan for its final preparation ahead of the Asian Games.

"We had a good final preparation in Japan where we also got good sparring. We came very well prepared for the Asian Games," Nieva said.

However, the coach stressed that the team's 2026 achievements cannot become a reason for complacency. He said the focus must now shift towards sustained improvement and ultimately achieving strong results at the Los Angeles Olympics.

With the Asian Games campaign concluded, India's women's boxing programme will now look to carry its 2026 momentum into the Olympic qualification cycle, with securing places at the earliest opportunity emerging as a key priority.