Bernard Dunne confirmed as India Boxing’s High Performance Director
Bernard Dunne was today officially confirmed as High-Performance Director of the Boxing Federation of India.
Irish-boxing.com reported the move was imminent last month but official confirmation only came today, as Team India celebrated the capture of an ‘legendary Irish boxer’ and ‘boxing great’.
The Clondalkin native resigned from his position as High-Performance Director at the IABA in May of this year.
The former super bantamweight champion of the world took up the role in 2017 and oversaw a transitional period in Irish amateur boxing.
Dunne was at the helm for a rebuild after a disappointing Rio Olympics and the departure to the pro ranks of some of Ireland’s greatest-ever amateurs.
That attempted rebuild took place among some very unhelpful infighting within the IABA and Dunne will argue it was successful considering Ireland won only our third boxing gold at the Tokyo Olympics as well as another bronze.
BREAKING NEWS 🤩
— Boxing Federation (@BFI_official) October 17, 2022
Focused to win medals from @Paris2024 BFI has appointed Irish Olympic Medal Winning High Performance Director #BernardDunne as the new High Performance Director. BFI & Dunne will work to take 🇮🇳 Boxing to next level 👏@AjaySingh_SG @debojo_m#PunchMeinHaiDum pic.twitter.com/i5n0ruWNPg
The former St Matthews and CIE amateur ignored calls to reconsider his decision and has taken up a similar role abroad.
The Sports Authority of India (SAI) and the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) had made contact with the Dubliner over the summer and have persuaded him to take the influential post.
India has a solid history in boxing, and although they have only won three Olympic boxing bronze, they always compete well at the World Championships, where they’ve won 48 medals as well as the Asian Championships, where they boast a total of 118 medal wins.
They finished second behind Northern Ireland in the overall standings of the recent Commonwealth Games with seven medals.
Dunne isn’t the first former High Performance Director to be tempted abroad. Billy Walsh, who oversaw a record medal haul with Team Ireland, is now over operations at Team USA.
