Santiago Nieva Targets Early Olympic Qualification After India’s Strong 2026 Women’s Boxing Campaign

New Delhi, October 7, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)

Santiago Nieva is already looking ahead to the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, with India’s women’s boxing team aiming to secure Olympic quotas at the earliest available opportunity following a successful 2026 campaign.

The Indian women boxers returned from the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games with three medals, including two gold, after an impressive season that also saw them win six medals at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, with five of them gold.

Nieva, the National Women’s Team Head Coach, wants India to make the most of the first Olympic qualification opportunity at the 2027 World Championships in Kazakhstan.

“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 Asian Olympic Qualifier would follow, while two more Olympic qualifying opportunities would be available in 2028.

Nieva said securing qualification early would give the boxers more time to focus on Olympic-specific preparation instead of carrying the pressure of qualification into the later stages of the cycle.

“Ideally, if we get to qualify next year early on, we get a good preparation time,” he said, adding that the qualification pathway would be challenging and that the team hoped to secure as many places as possible for Los Angeles.

The results of 2026 have reflected the progress of the women’s programme under Nieva, who previously served as High Performance Director of Indian Boxing from 2017 to 2021 before returning to the Indian boxing set-up in 2025.

He attributed the team’s consistency to sustained preparation involving international exposure, domestic camps and quality sparring. The team spent significant time at the Sports Authority of India’s National Centre of Excellence in Patiala, where Nieva highlighted the depth of the support system available to the boxers.

“We have a staff of 40 people working with the boxers, around 20 coaches and another 20 support staff,” he said, pointing to improvements in areas including sports science, boxing facilities and equipment.

Nieva said India’s support ecosystem compares favourably with boxing programmes globally. The preparation also included hosting teams from the Dominican Republic and Iran in Patiala before the Indian squad travelled to Japan for its final training phase 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. Having said that, we cannot rest on this,” Nieva said.

With the Asian Games campaign complete, the Indian women’s boxing team will now look to carry its 2026 momentum into the Olympic qualification cycle, with securing quotas early emerging as the immediate priority.