Bernard Dunne steps down from Indian High-Performance role
Bernard Dunne has step down from his role as High Performance Director of Indian Boxing.
The Dubliner handed in his resignation this week and will no longer lead the Asain countries boxing program.
The move comes on the back of a disappointing showing at the first Olympic Boxing qualifier in Italy last weekend.
None of the nine Indians in contention managed to secure an Olympic spot, with eight of those nine exciting at the first round stage.
Presumably inspired by the bad display Dunne tendered his resignation to the Boxing Federation of India it was accepted. Former Irish underage coach Dmitry Dmitruk, who was working as coach with the men’s team, will also leave the set up.
“He has resigned from his position and it is going to be accepted,” said a member of the BFI executive council.
The former world champion and successful Irish High-Performance director took the role in October 2022.
It’s been reported his attempts to make change were not always welcomed by the powers that be in India.
The Clondalkin native’s selection methods, in particular courted controversy.
Dunne scrapped the selection trials in favour of an evaluation process in the national camp. Similar to the Irish selection policy it was based on parameters like performance in training, technique, weight management, sparring and many more.
That move was met with stiff resistance from boxers, coaches and within the BFI and to appease the discontent it was clear he needed a good qualification tournament.
That didn’t transpire and the relationship ended. Interestingly, Dunne led the country to a record-breaking medal haul at the IBA Men’s World Boxing Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan last year.
India came away from the tournament with three medals for the first time in history with Deepak Bhoria (51kg), Hussamuddin (57kg), and Nishant Dev (71kg) all reaching the podium.
The success came in the country’s first major male tournament since the Dubliner took the reigns as High-Performance Director and seemingly justified some big Dunne calls.
