Some plans worked, some didn’t but India’s show was fine: Nieva

TIL Desk Sports/ The medal count stayed at one bronze but India boxing coach Santiago Nieva feels there were several positives to be picked from their campaign at the 19th World Championship in which a powerhouse like China failed to secure a single podium finish.

Gaurav Bidhuri (56kg) was the lone Indian medallist to win a medal, joining Vijender Singh (2009), Vikas Krishan (2011) and Shiva Thapa (2015), in the overall list. As an improvement, India had three boxers in the quarterfinals, tied with the likes of Russia and Ukraine on that count.

In fact, India were tied with fairly successful boxing nations such as England, Ireland, South Korea and Mongolia among others, in having just one semifinalist at the showpiece event.

“I am satisfied to an extent but not what you can say, completely satisfied. We planned a few things going into the tournament. Some of them were executed well, some were not and now we will have to ensure that we implement 100 per cent of what we plan,” Nieva told , giving his assessment of India’s performance here.

“We have got one medal, we wanted more but then some of the big countries like China did not get even a single medal, so that should be some perspective,” he said.